


Playing the Part

by SiderealMessenger



Category: James Bond (Craig movies)
Genre: Double Entendre, Fake/Pretend Relationship, M/M, Undercover Missions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-14
Updated: 2015-12-10
Packaged: 2018-04-14 15:46:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 8
Words: 23,114
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4570221
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SiderealMessenger/pseuds/SiderealMessenger
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>James Bond comes into Q Branch after a mission with all of his equipment accounted for and in tact, and a complete mission report in Q's inbox. Q is pleasantly surprised and more than a little suspicious. Rightly so, as it happens, because Bond makes an unusual request of him. And yet, his license to kill is not the only thing that makes the man difficult to say no to...</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes, the first scene is a heavy mix of _Skyfall_ and _Mission Impossible: Rogue Nation_.

_“Bond, get on the plane.”_

James Bond rolled his eyes and began running along the runway (ironic, that) after the enormous commercial 777 about to take off on its way to Hong Kong. There were two 777s leaving Chicago O’Hare at close to the same time that day, and MI6 had intel that one of them was going to be hijacked in a terrorist attack on London. The problem was, they didn’t know which. Q had been in his digital throne room frantically scrolling through passenger lists and crosschecking them against MI6 files and known aliases, monitoring CCTV feeds and cellphone conversations at the airport, and generally doing his damnedest to give Big Brother a run for his money, but of course it was only at the last second that he turned something up. Bond was beginning to think Q did things like this on purpose, and perhaps only to him. 

He vaulted up onto a luggage lorry and sprinted down its length, leaping to catch the metal legs of the plane’s wheels as it charged by. It was perhaps the worst whiplash of his life, but his grip held, and he began the awkward climb up into the undercarriage before the wheels retracted and crushed him in the mechanics. 

_“Did you make it?”_

“Wild guess, Q,” Bond huffed, pulling himself the last of the way into the undercarriage as he felt the plane lift off the ground and heard the wheels come up behind him.  

_“Delighted to hear it, 007. Your man is in seat 36 C, but be cautious. He may have an accomplice I don’t yet know about.”_

“Yes, ma'am.”

_“Ma'am?”_

Bond smirked. “Sorry, old habits. Sir.”

_“Sir?”_ Q sounded even more surprised.

“Isn’t that what I’m supposed to call you?” Bond said, stripping in the dark belly of the plane. He had the steward uniform for each of the two airlines with him in his bag, and he changed into the appropriate set and left the other among the luggage. 

_“That is what you’re supposed to call me, but you never have before.”_

“Oh, then I suppose I shouldn’t start now,” Bond said, straightening his cuffs. “Consistency and that.”

Q audibly sighed. _“Welcome back, 007. I was afraid I’d lost you for a minute there.”_

Bond reached the hatch in the ceiling at the other end of the baggage hold and quietly unlatched it.  He pushed the hatch up and hopped silently up into the back of the plane, lowering the hatch with a soft _click_ behind him. Carefully, he peered through the curtain partitioning the back service area of the plane from the passenger section. If he was seen by a steward, he would certainly be recognised as an impostor, and although he had a fake U.S. Air Marshal badge in his jacket pocket for just that scenario, there would still be questions, and questions meant unnecessary delay and unnecessary attention. It would be best to go unnoticed. 

The other stewards should still be seated at the front of the plane for the ascent, which meant he had about fifteen minutes to complete the mission before the plane reached cruising altitude. 

_“Thirteen minutes, twenty-two seconds.”_

“Thank you, Q.” 

Of course, Q could have easily cancelled both flights, but then the terrorist would have simply walked away, or worse, gotten on any one of the hundreds of flights leaving O'Hare at a later time that day. Q could also easily hack into the 777’s onboard computer and pilot it to safety himself form Headquarters, but as soon as the plane changed its flight path, the pilots would do everything they could to correct it, and in failing that, would call every authority to alert them to a terrorist hijacking. Meanwhile, the real terrorist would be sure to catch on. Bond was needed to prevent civilian casualties, or worse, a hostage situation. 

He spotted row 36, and unsurprisingly, there was only one person in it. Of course, any terrorist worth his salt would buy the whole row of seats so that he could make his preparations unnoticed. It also looked like the man had had the same thought about the stewards, and was about to move.  

Bond pulled back the curtain and began to make his way quickly down the aisle. Just as the man was starting to stand, Bond blocked his way into the aisle and shoved roughly into the seat next to him, pushing the man back into the middle seat. 

“Is this seat taken?” Bond said, while making sure the man – young, well-dressed and British by the accent of his hissed expletive, someone the transit authorities wouldn’t look twice at – could feel the muzzle of his Walther in his side. 

“Who are you?” the man growled as Bond took the homemade plastic pistol from his hand and removed the cartridge, pocketing it, before handcuffing the man’s hands behind his back and fastening the seatbelt extra tight around his lap. MI6 wanted the terrorist alive for interrogation. 

“Just an observant steward with a love of country,” Bond said with a slight smile. “I do hope you enjoy the flight, sir.” 

_“You call the_ terrorist _sir?”_

Bond chuckled as Q somehow audibly fumed. 

_“Well, at least things seem to have gone unusually smoothly this time. Alright, 007, standard procedure. Try to keep the man from screaming and causing an upset, and local authorities will meet you on the ground at HKG. Hopefully they will decide to hand him over to us rather than deal with him themselves. If that happens, I’m sure neither Her Majesty's Government nor anyone else will ever hear from him again. Other than that, enjoy the sixteen-hour flight. I’m sure you can strike up a lovely conversation with your new terrorist friend.”_

Just then, the plane dipped severely to the left, and several passengers who had stood up to get their bags down from the overhead compartments stumbled and fell into the aisles and other seats. 

_“Bond, the plane is changing course.”_

“I noticed,” Bond said, standing with his hand on the seat in front of him in case of another unexpected manoeuvre. “Must be a bloody accomplice after all. So much for flying under the radar.” 

The handcuffed man shot him a defiant look, and Bond wanted to shoot him more literally. Instead he said, unnecessarily, “Wait here,” and stalked quickly down the aisle toward the cockpit. 

“U.S. Air Marshal,” he said in an American accent, flashing his badge at the trying-not-to-panic stewards outside the cockpit door at the same time as he pulled the curtain separating the front service area and the passenger section closed behind him. “What’s happened?” 

One of the stewards, shaking more than the rest, stepped forward. “She-she came up behind me out of nowhere as I was making the coffee. Held a gun to my head. Told me to ask the captain to open the door. I…I did it, I’m so sorry, I don’t know what I was thinking.”

“It’s okay,” Bond said with as much patience as he could muster. “Anything else?”

“She went inside, and… I think I heard gunshots.”

“All of you, get the passengers to the back of the plane,” Bond commanded. “I’m going in there to regain control of the situation.” He used the impersonal, government agent speak that he knew they would respond to and find somewhat reassuring. 

It worked like a charm. The stewards scrambled to corral the passengers further back, glad to put distance between themselves and the danger at the front of the plane. 

“Air Marshal, I’m coming in,” Bond announced through the cockpit door, before shooting through the lock and carefully sliding the door open. He wasn’t immediately shot, which he thought was a good start. 

There was a woman in a simple but still rather slinky black dress seated casually, one leg crossed over the other, in the pilot’s chair. The pilot was dead on the floor, and she held the copilot at gunpoint in the chair beside her, her other hand on the joystick and wrapped around a mobile phone that appeared to be hardwired via a cable into a mess of other cables spilling out of the control panel (that kind of thing was more Q’s area of expertise than his). 

The woman looked up at him cooly, and he put his hands in the air in a placating gesture, though he didn’t drop his gun. Slowly, without turning his back on the woman, he closed the cockpit door behind him.  

“Someone’s been very naughty,” he said.

_“Really, 007?”_

“Not just one of us,” the woman responded, the corner of her mouth curving into an emotionless smile. “You must be the one who detained my partner. And you aren’t an airline steward. Nor an Air Marshal.” She, too, had a British accent, though it was mixed with something a bit more exotic that he couldn’t place. 

“I won’t insult your intelligence by asking how you know,” he said. “What do you think I am, then?”

“Dare I say secret agent?” she hummed. “It sounds rather sensational in real life.” 

“It does, rather,” Bond said with a false smile of his own. He dropped his fake accent. “And yet, you’re the one hijacking a plane in a party dress.” 

“This is the last thing I’ll ever wear,” the woman said, uncrossing her legs. She was also sporting an expensive pair of high heels. “I think I had the right to indulge.”

“Certainly,” Bond said. “So, you have a hostage. What’s the mobile wired to the control panel for?” 

_“There’s a mobile wired to the control panel? Er, don’t answer that, obviously. I’m looking for it, just keep her talking and not shooting.”_

“Do you know what a dead man’s switch is, Mister…?” 

“Bond. James Bond. And I’m familiar with the concept.”

“Well then, Mister Bond, you’ll understand that if the pressure or body heat from my palm leaves the screen of this phone, the fuel tanks will dump, and the plane will go down with me.” Her voice was unwavering – confident and determined.  

_“It’s wired to the fuel tanks, okay… Ah, I see what she’s done. She’s good. Very good. I think I can crack it, but I’ll need you to stall some more. I know, why don’t you start flirting with her again?”_

“You ' _think_ '?” Bond murmured. 

“Do you have someone whispering in your ear, mister secret agent man?” the woman asked curiously. 

“No one special,” Bond said. “He just likes to backseat secret agent. And remind me at every opportunity to bring my equipment back in one piece.”

_“I do not ‘backseat secret agent.’ I offer helpful suggestions and vital information. And it’s_ my _equipment.”_

“He sounds like a nagging housewife,” the woman smirked. She was apparently willing to indulge in a conversation she expected would be her last, as well. 

_“I do_ not _!”_  

“You know, you may be onto something there,” Bond answered. 

“Well,” the woman said, “we can’t have that. Take out the earpiece and smash it, Mister Bond.” She tipped the gun pointed at the copilot’s head, and he flinched, a quiet whimper escaping his lips. 

_“Don’t you_ dare _.”_

“He really doesn’t like that idea,” Bond relayed. 

“And I’m sure he would be even more displeased if I put a bullet through this lovely young copilot’s temple,” the woman said, the faint traces of humour and amusement that had crept into her voice and expression quickly fading. 

“I wouldn’t be so sure about that,” Bond said, testing his luck as always. “He really loves his gadgets.”

The woman straightened out her arm, pressing the muzzle of the gun against the copilot’s skin. His wide eyes flicked between her and Bond. 

“Mister Bond,” she said tensely, “you have been an entertaining final conversation partner, but this man is not prepared to die just yet…”

_“I’ve got it! The connection’s severed!”_

“…and I am.”

“Good.” Bond shot the woman right between the eyes. 

Slowly, she slumped in the captain’s chair, the plastic pistol and mobile phone dropping from her hands. A single trail of blood leaked from her forehead down the middle of a face that hadn’t even had time to register surprise. It still wore the trace of a confident, emotionless smile and a passion that ran much deeper: belief in a cause. Not only was the look common in Bond’s line of work, it greeted him most mornings in the mirror. The days it didn't were even worse.

_“Yes, well, um. Good work, 007. One target captured, one terminated. Have the usual report in my inbox by Monday evening. I trust you can take things from here.”_  

Bond got the copilot settled in the captain’s seat, made a brief announcement over the PA system that the threat had been neutralised, then settled in next to his captive for the long flight.


	2. Chapter 2

There were six members of the Hong Kong CIB and another MI6 agent waiting for him on the runway. The other agent had struck a deal with the CIB for the prisoner – Bond didn’t know what MI6 had offered, and he didn’t ask. It wasn't his business. Three of the CIB officers escorted the two MI6 agents and their prisoner onto the next flight to London, and left them looking pleased with the transaction. Bond and the other agent spoke very little on the flight, and their prisoner said nothing at all. 

Of course, Bond could tell that the other agent was curious, and three hours into the flight, the man's curiosity won out, leading to the only conversation they would have of over a dozen words between them.

"You're a double-oh, aren't you?" The agent's voice was hushed, and the setting was discreet enough. It was not a crowded flight.

Bond smiled slightly and inclined his head. 

"Don't take this the wrong way," the agent said, and even his training couldn't keep all of his nerves from showing through, "but even if they hadn't told me, I could tell as soon as I saw you. I don't know how, exactly."

"That's your training," Bond said, because he couldn't resist. He had also been able to tell as soon as he saw the other agent that the man was relatively new to the job, though he was perfectly competent. He liked to have a little fun with the new agents on these rare opportunities. "I look like the men you usually see at the other end of your gun. Like him." He indicated the terrorist sitting between them, now asleep.

The other agent was too well-trained to shiver, but Bond could see the chill in his eyes. “I suppose you’d have to,” the agent muttered, half to himself, “to do the things you do.” 

“I suppose,” Bond said.  

They lapsed into silence again for a minute or two, before the other agent asked a question that surprised him. 

“You must have the new Quartermaster in your ear, then. Is…is he listening?”

“I don’t think so,” Bond said, frowning at the hint of fear in the man’s voice. “Q?” When in doubt, he usually assumed Q was listening, but he wasn’t about to spoil Q’s fun if he was.  

There was no response, and Bond shrugged.  

“I don’t know how you handle it, being under his watch all the time,” the agent said, and this time he did shiver. “I know he’s supposed to be like your guardian angel, but I just hope I never come to his attention. I don’t want him to care enough to know a thing about me.”

“Oh?” Bond said curiously.  

“Well, not that he’d even bother with someone like me. From what I’ve heard, that man could have the world on a fibre optic cable if he wanted. It’s a bloody good thing he’s on our side. Still doesn’t stop him from being bloody terrifying, though.”

Bond considered this. “I suppose,” he said. 

They fell silent again, this time for nearly the rest of the flight, only speaking again to coordinate their hours of sleep. Bond slept first, and he slept soundly. 

~ ~ ~

There was a black van waiting for them on the runway this time, with two more agents. “We’ll take care of him from here,” one of the agents said, while the other put a bag over the prisoner’s head and ducked him into the back of the van. “May we give you a ride back to Headquarters, 007?”

“Yes, thank you,” he said, getting in back with the agent he had flown with. 

He watched London swim dark and drearily by outside of the window, and imagined it burning. When they pulled into the parking garage at HQ, Bond asked if any of the other agents had another pair of handcuffs.

“I’ve got a pair,” the driver said. “Why?”

“I need to return mine,” Bond said with an amused smirk. 

The other agent gave him a strange look, but went around back with Bond to swap out the handcuffs, only unlocking Bond’s once the new ones were locked tight. Bond pocketed the handcuffs with a word of thanks, then crossed the garage to the lift, passing the biometric scans and taking it to the upper level. 

His first stop was the showers. He had, after all, spent nearly thirty straight hours on planes. After he had put on a fresh change of clothes and stuffed the detestable steward uniform into the rubbish bin, he went to check in with M, briefly. It was always briefly with this M. 

He said the mission had gone smoothly, and M nodded and reminded him of his next mission.

“Have you chosen who you’re going to bring along?” M asked. 

Bond offered his suggestion, and M looked surprised for a moment before saying, “Alright. I’ll assume you have your reasons, 007.” It had not taken M long to learn that James Bond worked best on his own initiative. “But remember that he is an extremely valuable MI6 asset. More valuable, even, than you. Return him with so much as a scratch, and you will be held responsible."

“Understood,” Bond said, and that was the end of their meeting.  

Next, he went over to Q Branch to pay a visit to his Quartermaster. 

~ ~ ~

Q was in the less than thrilling process of tracking down a company bank account through dozens of different proxies set up around the globe with nothing more to work with than a partial invoice recovered from a corrupted file, when the sound of a throat clearing behind him pulled him out of his haze of boredom. 

“Ah, 007. Here for returns, I presume,” he said, giving the agent a once-over for damage. Not that that was his job. It _was_ his job to assess the damage of the equipment, however, and he figured it was best to get it over with as quickly as possible. “And how many of the items that I gave you will you be returning today in working order?”  

“Four,” Bond said. 

Q frowned. "Bond, I only gave you four."

"I know."

Q didn’t quite know how to respond to that, so when he said nothing, Bond began to take off his watch.  

“Satellite transmission jammer,” he said, placing the watch on Q’s desk. Next he unbuckled his belt, a little more slowly than necessary perhaps, but Q supposed he was being careful not to trigger the mechanism in the belt buckle. “Knock-out gas,” he said, placing the belt next to the watch. “Walther, minus two bullets.” The gun and clip joined the other items. “And these,” he said, fishing the pair of handcuffs out of his back pocket and holding them up with one finger. 

Q tried not to mentally screenshot the image of James Bond holding up a pair of handcuffs with a playful smirk on his face.  “You weren’t even _supposed_ to bring those back,” he said. 

“Oh?” Bond said. “Maybe I’ll hang onto them, then. Have some fun.”

Q rolled his eyes and snatched the handcuffs from Bond’s grasp. “Someone else will need them soon, I’m sure. And your mission report?" 

“I sent it to you in the car on my way here,” Bond answered easily.

Q pulled up his email on another monitor and found that Bond had indeed done so. He knew he really shouldn’t be impressed that 007 had managed to do what other agents did on at least a semi-regular basis, but he couldn’t quite help feeling pleased. And then immediately suspicious. Did 007 want something from him? If he’d destroyed his second Aston Martin in two months, Q was going to start sending him out in Toyota Camrys. 

“I obviously haven’t read your report yet. Everything did go smoothly, didn’t it?” Q asked.  

“Oh, yes,” Bond said. “Though not literally. Bit of a bumpy ride, not even counting when the terrorist forcibly took control of the plane. You would have hated it,” he chuckled.  

“Why?” Q asked, eyes narrowed. 

“I heard you hated flying,” Bond said.  

“From whom?” Q looked scandalized. 

“A little birdie with a straight razor in her talons,” Bond said. “We had fun in Macau without you.”

“Moneypenny,” Q hissed. “I _confided_ in her.”

“Don’t like showing weakness?” Bond asked, curious. 

“Not generally, no!”

“You must know the plane crash statistics,” Bond said. “You don’t find them comforting?”

“Knowing the eleven million doesn’t keep you from being the one,” Q said stubbornly. “Was that all, 007?”

“Were you listening, during my conversation with the other agent on the plane back to London?” Whatever the other agent thought, Bond found it difficult to be too intimidated by a kid in a cardigan who was afraid of aeroplanes. Albeit a very well-fitting cardigan. 

Q’s anxiety seemed to evaporate and a small, self-satisfied smile graced his lips. “That agent was more afraid of me than he was of you.”

“I wouldn’t go _that_ far,” Bond said. He could be just as prideful as Q when he could afford to be. 

Q’s smile only broadened. “I was considering sending a welcome home gift basket to his residential address, but the man already seems to have a healthy respect for me. Unlike a certain double-oh.”

“Q,” Bond said seriously, “I may have been incredulous at first, but you have more than proved yourself. You are likely the most talented Quartermaster MI6 has ever had. No matter what I may say to rile you up, on a mission, there is no one I’d rather have as my guardian angel.”

Q frowned (he risked blushing otherwise). “Alright, now I’m certain you want something from me. What is it, Bond?”

“Well, now that you mention it,” Bond said with an innocent look (something he had never quite managed to pull off, in Q’s opinion), “you’re aware of my next assignment, correct?”

“You’re to use the St. Wenceslas Day Ball held by Corvus Corporation at its corporate HQ in Prague as cover to infiltrate the company’s offices and gather evidence of its nature as a front for a massive illicit arms dealer. Speaking of which, have you decided who you're bringing with you? I need to get to work on their party favours."

Bond looked at Q for a long moment, and then said seriously, "Q, will you go to the ball with me?" Q looked briefly confused, and then utterly horrified. Bond flashed him a brilliant and purely evil smile. 

“Not a chance, Bond,” Q said. “You have plenty of excellent field agents to choose from. I am not an option.”

“M seems to think otherwise,” Bond said.  

“You’ve already discussed this with M?” Q asked, his confidence faltering.  

Bond nodded. “You said yourself that you couldn’t hack into Corvus Corp.’s security remotely because everything runs on an internal network. I would rather not go in blind, and I suspect you can get me behind the scenes with a lot more finesse than a Walther PPK. So I’d like to bring you.”

Sometimes it seemed to Q that if a double-oh insisted that a castle in the south of France was necessary for their cover, they would get one. They were spoiled and carried far too much unofficial power within the agency, and no one abused that power more than Bond. And yet, the man had a point. 

Q suddenly realised that the room had become unnaturally quiet, the usual constant clicking of computer keys gone from the air. He turned sharply to catch his underlings watching him and 007 over their screens. Of course, as soon as his gaze fell upon them they ducked down and the sound of fingers flying across keyboards picked up again twice as loud as before. Q glared in irritation at the room at large for a moment before turning back to Bond. 

“Let’s continue this conversation in my office, shall we?” he said to the smirking agent, before turning on his heel and crossing the room to hold open the (sound-proofed) glass door to his spacious corner office. 

He had brought Bond’s gun and clip with him, and after closing the door behind the double-oh, he sat behind his desk to open the gun up and inspect for damage. Not that Bond could possibly have damaged it on such a simple mission (though if anyone could, he supposed it would be Bond) – it was just protocol. 

“Wouldn’t you normally take a female agent on this sort of assignment?” Q asked, hoping it sounded sufficiently nonchalant. “I could recommend several who are decent with security systems. Once you’re inside, I don’t expect the hack would be difficult.”

“Forgive me if I don’t trust your ability to judge the difficulty of a task of this nature for a mere mortal,” Bond said, playing rather obviously to Q’s vanity but damn it if it didn’t work anyway.  

“Alright,” Q allowed, “my perception may be slightly skewed. But don’t you think two men showing up together would look suspicious?” 

“Not if we play the part well…”

There was something in Bond’s voice that made Q both nervous and morbidly curious. He swallowed. “Part?”  

“…dear.”

To Q’s horror, Bond seemed to take his speechlessness for assent. "If you don't own a suit, I suggest you buy one before we leave," he said.

"Of course I own a suit!" Q tried to yell, but it came out sounding embarrassingly like a whimper. 

Luckily, Bond didn't hear it, because he was already out the door. 


	3. Chapter 3

It was eleven in the evening when Eve Moneypenny’s telephone rang. She had just gotten into bed with a book and her new cat – a true sign that she was settling down, as field agents couldn’t keep pets. Overall, she was enjoying the calm of her new life. Even a desk job at MI6 held plenty of excitement during the day, and then she could come home to this, or go out and have fun while only looking over her shoulder half as much as she used to. Occasionally her finger would itch for a trigger, but then she would remember that shot on the bridge in Istanbul that – they all had thought, and really they all should have known better – had felled 007, and the itch subsided.

She picked up the phone before it could ring a second time. “Hello?” Of course, she still never answered a phone by giving her name. There was no need to take careless risks even now. 

_“Ms. Moneypenny.”_

She recognised the familiar voice – smooth, gentle, a bit posh. “Q,” she said. “I suppose it would be a stupid question if I asked how you got my home number. Is something wrong?”

_“No, no. Well, I suppose it depends, really, but nothing of international importance.”_ Q took an audible breath, stopping himself. _“I’m hoping you may be able to provide me with a little insight. Regarding 007. The line’s secure,”_ he added. 

“Ah. I can certainly try,” she said, her curiosity piqued. 

_“You’re…well, for lack of a better word, friends, aren’t you?”_

“For lack of a better word,” she agreed. “I’m not sure Bond really has friends, at least, not anymore. Not after M…”

_“Skyfall,”_ Q sighed. _“I led Silva and his men there, did you know that?”_ It was news to Eve, but Q didn’t seem to want an answer. _“I was a party to it,”_ he continued. _“And I feel responsible for…what happened there.”_

“It was Bond’s plan,” she said gently. “And it was what enabled him to eliminate Silva with no…civilian casualties. There are many worse ways to leave this world than that. Friendly fire, for a nonspecific example,” she chuckled. Yes, the wounds from M’s death were still fresh, but she would remain strong for the ones who were still bleeding. 

Q chuckled, too. _“Yes, I imagine Bond was peeved about having that as the cause of death in his file. He probably always expected he’d go down in a blaze of glory, or finally bested by one of his numerous femme fatales.”_

“You don’t consider me a femme fatale?” Eve asked, feigning offence. 

_“Quite the contrary,”_ Q said, and she could hear the smile in his voice now. _“But luckily you’re on our side. Unless you’re a_ very _good double agent.”_

“Alas, I don’t think even I could hide something like that from you, Q,” she said, and though she said it with a smile, it wasn’t a joke. “Now, not that conversing with you late into the night wouldn’t be lovely,” Q muttered an apology that Eve dismissed, “but you called about Bond, I believe.”

_“Yes, Bond…”_ Q sighed again. _“Has he told you anything about his next assignment? Or has M put you on it?”_

“M hasn’t given this one to me, but Bond mentioned it was some high-class corporate party, in Prague, I believe,” she said. “MI6 thinks the company’s a front for…arms dealing, was it?”

_“Of course I can neither confirm nor deny any information regarding an active mission, but that’s sufficient for the purposes of this conversation.”_

“Q,” she said. “If you’re going to call me after we’re both off work, can you speak to me a little less like the Quartermaster of MI6 and a little more like a friend?”

_“Yes, yes, sorry,”_ Q said again. _“This thing with Bond has got my head in somewhat of a jumble. It’s just…I don’t exactly fit the profile of the agent he’d normally take along to that sort of thing, right?”_

“He’s chosen _you_?” Eve said, surprised. “Certainly Bond never choses anyone who is less than highly competent, so you do fit that part of the profile. But somehow the agent of choice also invariably looks great in a dress slit to the thigh. So unless you have something like that in your wardrobe…”

_“I most certainly do not,”_ Q huffed. _“And…that’s what I thought. He does have good reasons for wanting me there, but I can’t help but feel I am far from the obvious choice.”_

“Maybe he has a thing for you,” Eve teased. 

Q took only slightly longer to respond than usual. _“Now that would be ridiculous.”_

“Are you even cleared for fieldwork?” she asked. 

_“Yes, if necessary. I know my way around all sorts of weaponry, and I’m trained in self-defense for scenarios such as kidnappings and rendezvous with agents gone wrong, but I’ve never had to rely on that training, because I’ve never actually been in the field. I’ve always been able to get out of it because of my…flying thing. Oh god, I’m going to have to get on a plane.”_ Q sounded like he was going to be sick at the mere thought of it.

“Are you going to be alright?” Eve asked in genuine concern. “I’m sure you could get out of this one, too, if you need to.”

_“I…I’ll manage. My medicine cabinet looks like the shelves of a chemist for just this reason. But thank you for your concern, and for talking with me about all of this. I hope I didn’t interrupt anything.”_

“Nothing important,” Eve said. “I was just getting into bed with Tom.”

Q’s voice rose a little in pitch as he stuttered, _“O-oh, I’m so sorry, I’ll just—“_

Eve decided to take pity on the Quartermaster. “Tom is, of course, my cat,” she said, scratching behind the ears of the grey form curled up on the pillow beside her.

_“Oh, thank god,”_ Q breathed. _“In that case, I do have one more question for you, if you don’t mind.”_

“Go ahead,” Eve chuckled. 

It wasn’t that he didn’t own one, it was just that what he had was nothing near what he knew Bond would be wearing. _“Where would one go to buy a very nice suit?”_

~ ~ ~

If James Bond were being tortured, and if he hadn't been trained to withstand torture so very well, he _might_ admit to having a bit of a thing for his new Quartermaster. He had been quite surprised on one mission not too long ago to find himself drifting off as Q rattled off some probably rather important details. Bond had snapped out of it immediately of course, and began to pay attention again to catch up on what he'd missed, but he realised he had simply been content to listen to Q's voice. The man had a nice voice, when he wasn't nagging – smooth, slightly breathy while still being authoritative, always sounding like he knew something you didn't, which he probably did. It did not help Bond's predicament that he had that voice chatting away in his ear on nearly every assignment. In fact, it made it next to impossible to take his mind off the matter.

Q was admittedly very different from Bond's usual type, but he had always found smarts sexy, and Q had those in spades. Q could also hold his own against Bond in almost every way, which was rare enough for Bond to find thrilling in itself. These were, of course, qualities that most of Bond's greatest enemies also possessed (and indeed, if Silva hadn't been such a detestable human being, Bond might have considered drawing out that moment on his abandoned island, tied to his chair), but most importantly, Q was steadfastly good. He might enjoy the power of having the world at his fingertips a little too much to be counted a saint in anyone's book, but he always used that power to the right ends. Bond, who sometimes feared his proximity to the men at the other end of his gun more than he would ever admit, found that constancy reassuring. 

All of this was not to say that Bond’s reasons for wanting Q with him on this assignment weren’t perfectly legitimate. Bond was always professional. (Well, he was the morning after, anyway.) And it wasn’t easy to stay so professional with Q when Bond could tell that the other man was just as interested in him — and no, he wasn’t being presumptuous, he was just very good at reading people; he was trained for it. Of course, it was against MI6 regulations for any active agent to have romantic relations with another because it might cloud their objectivity and divide their necessarily singular loyalty to England. If MI6 could keep its agents from having any romantic relations at all, it would do so in a heartbeat. (A purely biological and entirely unromantic one.) Bond was – again – too professional to let an office romance affect his judgement or interfere with assignments of much greater importance, so these were regulations that he blatantly ignored. Q, on the other hand, probably followed them to the letter…letter pun perhaps intended. 

There was, of course, one obvious way to find out. If the mission went well – that is, if they didn’t end up fleeing for their lives – they would be spending the night together in Prague. It was up to Q as to exactly how they would be doing so, but Bond was not above attempting to influence his decision. 

Bond hummed thoughtfully into the last of his drink, before he tipped the glass back and drained it. He set it down with a quiet _clink_ on his private bar (MI6 had given him a flat with a private bar without him even asking) and got ready for bed, turning out the lights as he went. After he’d flicked the last switch, he allowed himself a slight smile in the dark. It was going to be a fun party. 

~ ~ ~

With nothing for him to do in the interim, Thursday came slowly for Bond. Still, Thursday morning found him waiting at Heathrow for a very reluctant Quartermaster, who had texted him a few minutes ago saying, “Tube is hell. Will be 6 min late.” Then, “Unless the Underground experiences a mysterious system failure. Then you may have to go without me.” To which Bond had responded, “Nonsense. We’d take a later flight. Or a private jet.”

There was no response from the Quartermaster until he showed up exactly six minutes after they were supposed to meet. He gave Bond a cursory glance and kept walking, getting into the check-in queue instead. When Bond joined him, Q’s first words to him were, “I think I will start giving you exploding pens after this, 007. You’ll just never know which ones they are.”

“You’d better start calling me James,” Bond said with a smile. 

Q only scowled. Bond used the break in conversation to look Q over properly. He was wheeling a small, black piece of luggage similar to Bond’s own, and carried a large, black laptop bag slung over his shoulder. In one hand he held a boarding pass and British passport (fake, of course, at least in the sense that whatever name it bore did not belong to a real British citizen, though the document had been legitimately issued by the British Government), and in the other a thermos of very good Earl Grey, judging by the delicious smell curling around him. He wore a pair of slim, grey corduroys and a thick, burgundy jumper that Bond was concerned he may actually drown in. Still, he looked…quite good. 

Q caught him looking and misread Bond’s assessment entirely. “This isn’t a date, James, so I don’t care how I look,” he said. “And if we fall out of the sky or go down in a fiery inferno, I am going to be comfortable for it.”

“Interesting,” Bond hummed. “The last person I met who thought she was going to die on a plane in a fiery inferno put on a cocktail dress for the occasion.”

“I couldn’t find one that went with my shoes,” Q said. “Sorry to disappoint.” 

“You never disappoint,” Bond murmured in Q’s ear. 

The effect was almost comical. Suddenly Q stood rod-straight, all hints of teasing sarcasm gone from his voice. “We’re still in England,” he whispered. “Our cover isn’t necessary yet, is it?”

“It isn’t,” Bond said softly. “But this is good practice. If I’m correct, you’ve never used a cover before.”

Q breathed a short sigh, half in exasperation, half to calm his nerves. “You’re right. Fine. But if you try anything too untoward, I _will_ start calling you embarrassing pet names. Cupcake comes first to mind.”

Bond couldn’t help but chuckle at the ridiculous notion. “I’ll keep my hands to myself,” he promised. “What should I call you? I can’t very well refer to you by a letter.”

“Chester Larkin,” Q said, holding open his passport for Bond to see. “Chess for short, if you must. You're not getting my real name. I don’t know how you’re still alive when you introduce yourself as James Bond to every minor henchman and major villain you face.”

“Well, Chess, perhaps I like to give my adversaries a handicap,” Bond said with a smile. 

Q rolled his eyes. “Hubris, James, is the downfall of the greatest.”

The next available agent called them over then, and they checked in for their flight. The agent, Paula, sent them off with a bright smile, wishing them a lovely holiday and commenting that they made a cute couple. Q might might have laughed if it wasn’t so strange. He and Bond made probably the most dangerous couple in Britain, and apparently, they were “cute.”

Going through security was a tense affair, as Q hated being separated from his laptop (though his security measures were enough to render the machine nothing more than a bulky and expensive paperweight to any but the most skilled hacker), and the metal detector went off when Bond stepped through. 

“Ah,” he said, removing his belt with an inquiring glance to the security officer. 

The officer nodded and indicated for him to put the belt through the X-ray machine and step through again. The metal detector did not go off a second time. When he met Q on the other side, Q scolded him under his breath.  “That was careless, Bond. I can make your gun fool a metal detector, but not a pat-down.”

“It won’t happen again, my dear,” Bond replied. 

Q shoved his laptop back into his bag a little more violently than necessary (the machine could take it – he’d built it like a brick) and grabbed Bond’s hand. “Come on, I need you,” he said, dragging the double-oh with him into the men’s room. 

Bond honestly didn’t know how to respond to that, and then Q began dumping out about half an apothecary’s worth of pill bottles from his bag onto the sink. He set them up in a row, and then went down the line, popping one or two of each and then gulping down a few handfuls of water. 

“In about twenty minutes, I will not be coherent,” he said matter-of-factly. “Do not take anything I do or say seriously. If our flight is delayed, do not let me take more than one of these every four hours,” he handed Bond the first pill bottle, “do not let me take more than two of these every three hours,” he handed Bond the second bottle, “and do not let me take another one of these until,” he checked his watch before handing over the third bottle, “eighteen-hundred GMT. Do not let me accept any alcohol, and most importantly, do not let me use my computer or I might just bring down the bloody plane myself.”

Bond blinked, still holding the pill bottles. 

“Do you need me to write all that down for you?” Q asked. 

“No, I’ve got it,” Bond said, unzipping his bag and slipping the bottles into an inner pocket. “Will you be alright?”

“It’s like tranquillising an animal for transport,” Q said. “It’s the most humane thing to do.”

Bond nodded, feeling slightly guilty for the first time about asking Q to come with him. 

Fortunately, their plane arrived on time at the gate half an hour later. Q was already quite out of it by then, eyes glassy, mumbling things that didn’t make much sense (at one point Bond even thought he was speaking in computer code), unsteady on his feet and rather clingy as a result. 

The flight was too short to have a First Class, and the only benefit of Business was that it had two slightly larger seats per row where Economy had three inhumanely compact ones. After Bond had manoeuvred Q into the window seat and taken his own beside him, the Quartermaster put up the arm rest between them and nestled in against Bond’s side, closing his eyes. When the plane began to race down the runway, Bond could feel Q tense against him, and a moment later, Q’s hand was in his, and he wasn’t sure who was gripping tighter. Q actually whimpered when the plane left the ground, but he settled down again when they reached cruising altitude and the cabin levelled out. 

Bond was now feeling _very_ guilty. 

When he thought Q was asleep, he took out his book. Then, looking over at Q again, he carefully removed the man’s glasses and tucked them into his own breast pocket. 

Q shifted against him, and though his eyes remained closed, he said, “Do you know what they call the agents you usually take out on these kinds of assignments?”

“Q?” Bond said cautiously. 

“They call them your Bond girls,” Q went on with a childish sort of chuckle. “It’s an elite club at MI6. I suppose I’m now a member, aren’t I, James?”

Bond winced. He was aware of the term bandied about the offices usually in good-natured jest, and sometimes even in awe, but this was the first time it had sounded so…tawdry. 

He knew Q had told him not to take anything he said seriously while he was like this, but Bond could’t keep himself from responding. “No, Q, we’re equals in this. Partners. You have valuable skills that I am counting on, and you are interchangeable with no one. I care about you,” Bond said truthfully, and those words had been true for so few others in his life. “And if you feel at any point that I am not treating you with the respect you are due as the man to whom I owe my life likely dozens of times over, I am formally giving you permission to shoot me. In the leg or something, nothing vital.”

Q opened his eyes blearily and squinted up at Bond. He didn’t meet Bond’s eyes, however, and Bond realised he was looking at the book in his hands.  “You’re reading Heinlein,” he mumbled. 

Bond sighed, getting the distinct impression that Q hadn’t really processed a word he’d said. “I do enjoy the occasional foray into science fiction,” he replied. 

“Now I finally understand why everyone says you have excellent taste,” Q said, closing his eyes again and nuzzling into Bond’s neck this time. 

“I _do_ have excellent taste,” Bond protested, albeit a little breathlessly. 

Q didn’t respond, and soon his breathing had slowed and his body relaxed. Bond sighed in relief, though he still found it difficult to concentrate on Heinlein with Q’s warm breath fanning his neck. It was a two-hour flight, and he had only five more pages to show for it by the end. 

He didn’t wake Q until they were back on solid ground.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the update gap! School crept up behind me and hit me over the head with a stack of textbooks. But I had to release the next chapter in honor of _Spectre_! (Oh my gosh, _**Spectre**_. A.K.A. 2.5 hours of 00Q with a couple of broads tossed in for giggles.)

Bond led his still drowsy Quartermaster off the plane, and it was only as they walked into the airport garage that Q finally said something coherent. 

“Alright, how bad was I?” he asked, rubbing his eyes under his glasses, his words still slightly slurred. The longer Bond took to answer, the more nervous Q got. “Well?”

“I’m trying to think of another way to say ‘adorable’ that would be more respectful of your station,” Bond answered. 

Q glared up at Bond (Bond was only a few inches taller than the other man, but it was enough to give him the high ground in every sense, except perhaps the moral one). “You just said it anyway,” Q pointed out. 

Bond shrugged. “You asked.”  

Q grumbled something about insubordination, and then said, “Our car should be in…erm…space B23.” 

“Are you sure?” Bond asked, because Q didn’t sound sure.

“Of course I am!” Q snapped, and Bond got the impression that the Quartermaster hadn't quite regained the hang of modulating the volume of his voice. “But, just for the record, I am currently holding all the details of your mission in my head while still quite heavily medicated.” 

“Our mission,” Bond reminded him.  

“…Our mission,” Q sighed. 

When they reached space B23, Bond let out a low, appreciative hum. Before them crouched a shiny new Alfa, top-of-the-line with a black leather interior and a paint job the colour of a silvery, Arctic moonrise. “Why Chester dear, you shouldn’t have,” he said. 

“It’s not for you, it’s for me,” Q said, plucking a pair of car keys from behind a ventilation pipe where they had been taped, out of sight. “If I’m going to run a field assignment with a double-oh, I am damn well getting the benefits. Dear.”

Bond chuckled. “But you can’t drive it. As I understand, you are still ‘quite heavily medicated.’” He held out his hand patiently. 

Q had to think about that for a moment, and then his entire countenance fell. He took one last wistful look at the keys before dropping them into Bond’s waiting hand with a sigh. “Next time you’re getting a Toyota, I swear,” he grumbled. 

Bond was actually worried he might follow through with that threat for a moment, until he realised that Q was too professional ever to give him a car that didn’t fit his cover. Probably. Come to think of it, a peace offering was in order, just to be safe. “You can drive us to the party,” he said, in as placating a tone as he could manage.  

“I was planning on it,” Q said simply, getting into the passenger’s seat next to Bond. “I’m the one who knows where it is.”

~ ~ ~

Q would never admit it, but he ended up quite enjoying being the passenger on the way to the hotel. For obvious reasons, he did not travel often, and letting Bond drive afforded him more opportunity to take in the sights. Prague was a beautiful old city, and the spires of the gothic architecture rising into the dusky sky were both magical and a little sinister. 

The hotel was a thing of old grandeur and elegance, all creams and crystal and satin. The staff ran the place like clockwork, and were equally unseen while doing so. Q didn’t think even Bond knew the kind of budget MI6 allowed for his missions, and he would prefer that the man never found out. Still, this mission did call for some liberal spending – Corvus Corp. would expect nothing less from its high-ranking executives – and Q had no qualms about holding the check book. He had reserved them a suite in the second nicest hotel in town. (The first only had high-speed Internet by the standards of 2002.)

In fact, Q had already spotted several Corvus Corp. execs at the bar on the way in, no doubt killing time and weakness before the party. He could just make out the slight disruptions in their black suit jackets that betrayed concealed firearms, and Q was pleased to note that Bond’s gun (otherwise known as Q’s gun) caused no such disruption when Bond moved. A give-away like that was amateurish, really, and Q had honestly expected more from professional arms dealers. 

Bond, of course, clocked the Corvus Corp. employees as well, and then swept right up to reception as if he belonged in such a place by divine right. Q supposed it took a similar kind of confidence to willingly walk into situations that typically resolved themselves in a hail of gunfire. 

“Checking in under Burke,” Bond said smoothly, flashing the young receptionist a smile that was more than strictly friendly. Incidentally, that was probably the last time Bond would use his alias on this trip. 

“Good afternoon, Mister Burke,” the woman said, with only a slight accent. She responded with nothing more than professional courtesy. “We have you two for one night in one of our penthouse suites.”

“Sounds perfect,” Bond said in that warm tone he had that was almost a purr. It was the same tone he used on Q quite frequently when he wanted the latest prototype Q happened to be working on. The whole exchange was beginning to get on Q’s nerves, though when he stopped to ask himself why, he quickly cut short his moment of introspection. 

“And are you with us for business or pleasure, Mister Burke?” the receptionist asked, passing him the keys over the desk. 

“Pleasure,” Bond said, at the same time as Q said, “Business.”

The receptionist blinked. They could have just given her the entirely wrong impression. 

“We’re going to a party, dear,” Bond reminded him.  


“An office party,” Q said. 

Bond turned back to the receptionist with another charming smile. “We have differing opinions on the matter.”

“Well, whichever it is, I do hope you enjoy your stay,” she said, making an admirable recovery. 

“I’m sure we will,” Bond said, slipping an arm around Q’s waist and ushering him into the lift. 

As soon as the doors closed, Q removed Bond’s arm from his person and crossed his own. “Really, James, I’m surprised a man of your age still has the energy for that sort of thing,” he said.  

“I’m forty-four,” Bond said, slightly offended. “And you should hear yourself, Chester. One would almost think you’re jealous.”

Bond was right of course, as was the case with frustrating frequency, but Q would never admit it. “Of course I am,” he responded breezily. “I am, after all, your S.O.”

“My Supervising Officer?” Bond asked innocently. 

“Very funny, James,” Q said. “But if you insist on acting like we’re _not_ sleeping together, then I see no reason to actually share the bed with you tonight. I gather the sofas in these suites are reasonably comfortable. You could sleep there. It’s your choice. Personally, I would like to do this properly.”

There was a flash of something dangerous in Bond’s celestial blue eyes, and Q tried not to panic as he wondered what the hell had gotten into him that he’d let his mouth get far enough ahead of his brain to actually _challenge_ 007\. He certainly couldn’t blame the medication for this one.  

“Oh?” Bond said softly, and since when had he been standing so close, close enough that Q could see his pupils dilate ever so slightly, consuming a fraction more of that piercing blue in darkness? “You want to do this properly?” 

Q took a small, involuntary step back, and his heel hit the wall of the lift. He cleared his throat, uncertain how to respond. That is, until his eyes focused on the small, blinking red light in the corner of the ceiling over Bond’s left shoulder. Bond was pointing out an opportunity to show off for the camera.  

Ever the professional, Q met Bond’s eyes with a new determination and pulled him down by his lapels to crash their lips together. Bond, whose response time to new scenarios averaged mere fractions of a second, took several seconds to respond to this new scenario. But when he did respond, it was to fervently make up for lost time. He slipped his fingers into Q’s curls while his other hand snaked around the back of Q’s waist, pulling him closer. Tilting his head so he could slip his tongue into Bond’s mouth may not have been _strictly_ professionally necessary, but it certainly made the performance more credible. Because it _was_ still a performance…wasn’t it? Q was, unusually, finding it rather difficult to think. 

The doors chose that moment to slide open with a cheery _ding!_ , shattering the heady atmosphere in the small car. 

Bond took a step back, holding an arm in front of one of the doors and regarding Q with an air of lasting surprise, and perhaps admiration. “After you, dear,” he said, and his voice was just slightly breathless. 

“Yes, well.” Q coughed and attempted to repair the damage Bond had done to his hair. Still, he couldn’t hide the small smile that graced his lips at being up to the challenge. He quickly made his way out of the lift, following the signs in the hall to their suite. 

There were only four suites on the top floor, and Q had arranged for the other three to be empty that night, just in case. He really didn’t care to be observed, even if they were using a cover. They were in room 1602, in the southwest corner. Embarrassingly, he had to wait for Bond outside the door, as the double-oh still had both keys. 

Of course, Bond was only a gentleman at the most frustrating moments, and when he found Q waiting outside the room, he pulled the keys from his breast pocket without a word, opened the door with one, handed Q the other, then held the door open for Q to breeze past him, also without a word. In a way, it was even more irksome than if Bond had made one of his usual snide comments. 

The suite itself was, like the rest of the hotel, quite posh. There was an anteroom with hardwood floors, a rich, patterned rug and closets of warm, dark wood. Past that was a WC, all porcelain and marble, at a jog across from the living room, which held, along with the lovely sofa Q had mentioned earlier, an antique writing desk fitted into a nook in one wall lined with bookshelves, a small table and two chairs in the corner, a glass lamp on top of that table that looked an awful lot like a Tiffany, and a large, intricately-carved armoire. Down the hall from that was the bedroom, lushly carpeted with expensive, silvery wallpaper, another en suite WC to the left, two nightstands bearing smaller, but equally Tiffany-looking lamps, and a big, fluffy, king-sized bed in the centre of the far wall, complete with a shining silver bed frame and a heavy canopy drawn back at two posts. 

Q removed a long, wand-like device from his laptop bag and began to move it over the walls and furniture. Bond recognised a bug sweep when he saw one. 

“I believe the last time I slept in a canopy bed was in a bordello in Milan,” Bond remarked conversationally from the doorway. 

“That’s disgusting,” Q said, a little absent-mindedly, as he was still preoccupied with his task. It wasn’t like the new information came as any sort of surprise. 

“I needed to lie low for the night, and it was the least conspicuous place I could walk into at that hour,” Bond explained. “I did not partake in the services.” 

Q focused his attention back on Bond. “My mistake. You’re a veritable saint.”

Bond opened his mouth to respond, but just then the doorbell rang, and Q said, “It’s for me.” He set the wand down on the nightstand and left the room. 

Bond did a quick patch-up job on his wounded pride and padded down the hall after Q, curious. A bellhop, perhaps a few years Q’s senior, was at the door with their bags, plus one extra that matched Q’s own in appearance.  

“Thank you,” Q said as the bellhop brought the bags into the hall of the suite. “I hope it wasn’t too much trouble.” He tipped the man a fiver, and Bond thought he saw something folded up inside. He definitely saw a flash of steel as the man bent to handle the bags. 

“Not at all,” the bellhop answered, accepting the bank note with a sharp nod and taking his leave. 

Bond quirked an eyebrow as Q took the newly acquired bag into the bedroom, leaving their own in the hall. “A contact?” he asked.

Q quickly finished his sweep of the room and then set the bag on the bed, unzipping it while he answered Bond. “Mhm. I sent Agent 71 ahead to gather intelligence. Normally I would have had all this sorted by now, but since I was traveling with you, I had to make a few adjustments. We have some homework to do.” He opened the suitcase to reveal several dozen manila folders of printed pages and photographs, a ream of handwritten notes and a hard drive. 

Bond gave a small, sardonic smile. “Wonderful,” he said. 

“These are the consequences of throwing a wrench into your Quartermaster’s schedule, I’m afraid,” Q said, handing Bond the first stack of folders with a more genuine smile of his own. 

Bond’s smile turned into a grimace. He took the files and stalked to the armchair in the corner to begin reading through them. Q, as he was wont to do at home, chose a position sprawled across the bed with his laptop to begin his portion of the work, starting with the hard drive. 

Q, in fact, ended up doing more than his portion of the work, reading out important details about the guest list, security, and layout of the building to Bond while the double-oh cleaned and loaded his gun. He didn’t mind. It was his job to act as Bond’s information bank so that the agent could focus on executing the mission as cleanly and efficiently as possible. Any unnecessary information rattling around in his head would only be a hindrance to him. Q would always be behind the scenes with the nitty-gritty details.  

Bond’s attention span on his reading had begun to gutter like a low-burning candle since the first time he had allowed himself to look up from the pages to where Q lay on his stomach on top of the sheets, his ankles crossed behind him in the air, entirely absorbed in whatever was on his laptop screen. Bond could stare quite openly, as Q was as good as dead to the world whenever he buried his nose in his laptop like that. And now he knew what Q _tasted_ like… It was, to say the least, difficult to keep his mind from wandering along with his eyes.   

It was a blessing, therefore, when Q began to read important details aloud. Bond quickly finished memorising the guest list and then moved on to readying his gun, content merely to listen to that soft, familiar voice fill the room. After he had cleaned his gun no less than three times (he was a double-oh agent, he could ready a gun in three seconds flat if the occasion called), he had killed enough time that Q had finished with the important things, and it was time to get ready for the party. There was, of course, a perfectly serviceable en suite WC, but when Bond returned to the bedroom with their luggage, he propped Q’s against the bed, placed his own on the luggage rack, and proceeded to strip, a little more slowly than was necessary. 

Q, whose mind was quite obviously still drifting in cyberspace, took a moment to catch on. There was a short fit of coughing from the bed as Q nearly choked on the pen he’d had between his teeth, and then a furious clacking of computer keys as he aggressively threw himself back into his work. The pace of his typing slowed after a minute, however, and Bond, more observant than his counterpart in these matters, caught Q looking more than once. The last time, as he was tying his bowtie, he met Q’s gaze in the mirror and winked. Q slammed his laptop shut, apologised to it quietly, and wheeled his luggage into the WC, shutting the door behind him with a little more force than was necessary. Bond chuckled. He would not, however, have the last laugh.  

Twenty minutes later, Q emerged wearing what Bond thought had to be the best suit Savile Row had to offer. It was tailored, obviously – it fit him too well not to be – slim cut, jet black down to the shirt, over which he wore a slim, emerald tie. He had tamed his hair into an arrangement resembling something like a dark halo, and had replaced his usual charmingly bookish glasses with a sleek, black pair with rectangular frames. Everything about him was sharp and entirely unlike the Q Bond was used to, and yet the look suited him sinfully well. 

Q straightened his cuffs and held Bond’s gaze. “Will this suit do?”

Bond struggled to regain his capacity for speech, and then waited a moment longer to be sure he didn’t say the first coherent response that popped into his head, which happened to be _‘That suit does wonders, Q. The only way it could possibly look better would be if it were on the floor.’_ He cleared his throat and said instead, “That will do nicely,” and told Q he would fit in just fine when the truth was Q would always stand out in a crowd. 

Q smiled, satisfied. “Keys,” he said, holding out a hand. 

It took a moment for Bond to register Q’s request. Reluctantly, he fished the car keys from his inside pocket and dropped them into Q’s hand. Q clutched the keys triumphantly, and together they left the suite. 


	5. Chapter 5

Q turned the key in the ignition and couldn’t stop the whisper of _“Oh, that’s lovely”_ from escaping his lips as the engine purred to life, one-thousand horsepower at his fingertips. 

Bond, who had been sitting rather miffed in the passenger’s seat looked over with the quirk of a smile. 

Q flushed a little, embarrassed at being caught admiring his own handiwork. “I don’t get to drive the cars I tinker with all that often,” he said by way of justification. “Apparently Health and Safety deems it too much of a risk, as they think my work is as liable to explode as it is to fire rounds. Which is true, statistically speaking, but they don't seem to take into account the fact that those things are _meant_ to explode. Regardless, my interns do the test drives.” Had his bitterness come across in his voice toward the end there? He hoped not. 

“Have you ever blown up one of your interns?” Bond asked. 

“Of course not,” Q huffed, pulling away from the kerb and into traffic. “There was a _slight_ malfunction with an ejector seat once, but Matthew was out of his cast within the month.”

Bond tried and failed not to chuckle. He had always found others’ pain a little bit funny. Perhaps he had been destined for this profession. “Well, it’s nice to know you appreciate these fine vehicles as more than just tools,” he said. 

“I dare say I appreciate fine vehicles more than you do,” Q responded, “as I don’t regularly wreck them beyond recognition.” He glanced over at Bond and despaired at the sight of him grinning back. 

“I’m just testing your safety features, Q,” Bond said. “And those tricky ejector seats.”

Q levelled his his eyes on the road once more and ignored the agent’s smile. 

~ ~ ~ 

Twenty minutes later he was pulling up outside a tall, black skyscraper that had somehow managed to enfold elements of the surrounding gothic architecture in the form of narrow, blackened-steel buttresses and a shard-like spire created from the tapering asymmetry of the top half dozen floors. 

The valets were opening the doors before Q could gather his thoughts, but luckily that was a task at which he excelled, and the next second he was sliding out of the car and handing off the keys with an aloof little drop into a waiting gloved palm, already slipping into the role of plus-one to a wealthy and dangerous high-level executive with a penchant for firearms. It wasn’t that far from his job description, really. 

Bond was practically made for the part, and he held an arm out for Q with a knife-edged grin, which Q accepted without rolling his eyes, despite the temptation. They looked like they had stepped out of two different eras as they strode up to the building, Bond in his classic, black dinner jacket and Q in his sleek, modern suit, but they didn’t clash. Each of them looked like a man at the top of his game, which was exactly what they were. Q couldn’t quell the not insignificant surge of adrenaline he felt at being out in the field with a double-oh – with _007_ –and despite his expectations, the feeling was not entirely unpleasant.   

Together, they stepped through the open doors into an enormous lobby, everything sleek black or ostentatious gold. There was an enormous onyx statue of a raven with its wings raised in the centre of the room, and Q thought the metaphor was rather clever. Ravens were harbingers of death, just like the hundred black-suited executives milling about the room with the occasional flash of colourful gown among them. The music fell like delicate shards of expensive crystal from unseen speakers high above, the percussion, the light tap of expensive shoes on polished stone floors. Conversation hummed around the catered buffet and full bar, and throughout the rest of the lobby, accompanied by the clinking of champagne flutes and cocktail glasses. 

He and Bond had to pass a security checkpoint at the entrance, but Bond surrendered the ID badge Q had given him earlier with an easy smile for one of the private security guards to scan. Bond’s photo appeared on the screen at the top of his falsified employee file, and he passed the retinal scan just as easily. Although Corvus Corp. ran everything on internal servers, once Agent 71 had gotten within range, Q had easily walked him through uploading Bond’s biometric data to their system. Of course, there were no metal detectors.  

The guard looked at Q next. 

“My date,” Bond said in Czech, tossing an arm lazily around Q and sliding his hand not-so-subtly down Q’s opposite side to rest at his waist, fingers curling rather possessively just above his hip. Q thought Bond was overdoing it just a bit, but he didn’t flinch. 

The guard scrutinised Q, and Q returned his gaze with one that was unchallenging, but also unforgiving. It was the same look he levelled on double-ohs, in fact, who failed to follow his orders to the letter and ended up in spectacular cock-ups because of it. He mostly used it on Bond, come to think of it, and the novelty had largely worn off. But he was still able to make other double-ohs squirm every now and then, a fact in which he took no small pride. 

The guard nodded curtly and gestured for them to enter. As they joined the party, Q leaned in and whispered in Bond’s ear in a way that would appear intimate to any observers, “Are you sure we aren’t drawing too much attention to ourselves?” Q had known that eyes tended to gravitate towards James Bond the minute he walked into a room, but he was unused to the phenomenon himself. 

Bond smiled like Q had said something particularly suggestive, and even pressed a quick, hot kiss to Q’s jaw before whispering back, “We’re in Prague, not Saint Petersburg. No one’s going to bat an eyelash. I’ll come find you in twenty.”

Q knew the plan. They would spend twenty minutes socialising to blend in and wear out any interest the guards might have taken in them, and see if they couldn’t gain any useful information in the process. Then they would get down to business. 

Q hated socialising and parties, but at least at the one or two parties a year MI6 threw at Headquarters, he held such a high rank within the agency that most employees took it as a privilege if they were able to catch his attention. Here he was no one, not even an employee, and no one had any reason to talk to him at all. 

A parting kiss on the mouth from Bond, however, left him wondering if he wasn’t in fact the most important person in the room. He watched Bond walk away and confidently join a conversation of sharp-suited executives, and the warm tingling left on his lips and in his chest was like a shot of hard liquor, killing most of his cowardice. He turned and walked in the other direction.  

Q found his people almost immediately. They were embarrassingly easy to spot, with ink stains on their cuffs, inexpensive and ill-fitting suits, a novelty tie or two, and generally bespectacled like himself from squinting at computer screens long into the night. They were chatting in a large group by the buffet. Q put a few delicious looking little pastries on his plate (it may have been a device to approach them, but he had a very real sweet tooth), and then turned and asked the gaggle of geeks whether any of them had been working on any interesting programming projects lately. Thankfully, they had been speaking in English since they were all from different branches across Europe, and Q didn’t have to rely on the small amount of conversational Czech he had learned in the two day’s warning he’d received that he would be coming along on this mission.  

Everyone was surprised by the question at first, because tonight Q certainly did not look like one of them, but it did not take much conversation before they were assured of, and quickly awed by, his credentials. He may have found it difficult to talk to people generally, but talking about coding had always been easy, as he could go on about it to no one at all, and frequently did. (He was a big subscriber to the rubber duck method of coding, but instead of a rubber duck, he typically talked to a little toy robot on his desk that a friend at uni had given him as a joke. The joke was that Q could be almost indistinguishable from a robot sometimes, back when he’d had his nose to the grindstone working through a Computer Science and an Engineering degree in three years. He hadn’t found the joke quite as funny as his friend, but he had enjoyed building robots even then, and grew rather attached to the little toy.)

He was chatting happily with a young woman and two older men about firewalls (and learning a thing or two about Corvus Corp.’s own in the process) when he finally felt comfortable enough to start listening in on Bond’s conversation over his earpiece. The double-oh was talking about him of all things, bragging actually, making up things about their relationship that had Q blushing. He knew that kind of talk was rather par for the course for the types Bond was currently associating with – they felt entitled to anything they wanted, and yet still found enjoyment in showing off what they had acquired. Still, Q thought it prudent to check in, and perhaps curb Bond’s enthusiasm somewhat.

He excused himself from his own conversation to get a drink, at the same time murmuring, “Have you learned anything interesting yet, 007?”

Bond caught his eyes across the room, and the double-oh was pleased to note that Q didn’t have the habit of touching a finger to his ear when he used his earpiece. Bond supposed he shouldn’t have been surprised, as Q was just as accustomed as he was to using one with his hands otherwise busily occupied.  

Bond stepped away from the conversation and pretended to answer a phone call (Q had installed an app on his mobile for just such occasions which, at the push of a button, would cause the screen to imitate a call). _“A thing or two,”_ he responded. _“You know, you aren’t supposed to tell the bad guys how they can improve their cybersecurity.”_  

“I can only offer improvements if they tell me about their current system, and by the time they would get around to implementing the minor changes I’ve suggested, we’ll have been in and out with everything we need, and Corvus Corp. will be facing international lawsuits and bankruptcy,” Q said into his drink. 

_“My, Q, you really do have a promising career in espionage,”_ Bond hummed. _“How about we rendezvous by the bird statue in five? I’d say we’ve been at this just about long enough.”_  

“Alright,” Q said. “Oh, and Bond?”

_“Mm?”_

“Kindly stop talking about me as if I’m not in the room.”

Q heard the agent hide a surprised cough by clearing his throat instead. _“You speak Czech?”_ he asked. 

“No, of course not,” Q said, just a little bit pleased at catching a double-oh off guard. “I modified MI6 translation software to interface with my earpiece. It’s against my principles to be out of the loop.”

Q caught Bond’s glance across the room once more, and this time it was both admiring and a little wary. Bond thumbed the “end call” button, which quit the app, and rejoined the small circle of executives while being just a little bit more mindful of his tongue. 

Q returned with a smile to the group he’d been talking with earlier, answering a few of their questions about terms he’d used that they hadn’t been familiar with, and algorithms for the trickier bits of code he’d described. He was actually beginning to enjoy himself when he heard a peal of smooth, feminine laughter over his earpiece. He looked to Bond, only to find the double-oh chatting up a pretty, female executive who looked both dangerous in those spiky stilettos and alluring in a black skirt that was just the slightest bit short on her long, smooth legs. 

This time Q really did roll his eyes, and he made the decision to bump up the rendezvous time by two minutes in favour of keeping his agent on task. He excused himself from the conversation once more, dumped the rest of his champagne in the rubbish bin, left the glass on the buffet table, and went to meet up with 007. He had a part to play, after all.  

Bond had had his back to Q, so he didn’t notice his Quartermaster approach until he felt a delicate hand at the small of his back and another smoothing over his shoulder and down his arm. “Would you like a drink, love?” Q asked before leaning in and murmuring in Bond’s ear, “I’m absolutely parched.”

Only Q was able to feel the quick-release tension of Bond’s muscles beneath his jacket and hear the man’s soft, surprised intake of breath. Q knew it was generally a bad idea to sneak up on a double-oh agent, but he knew, too, that Bond would be keeping a damper on his killer instincts in such a public place, and he felt relatively safe in his actions. 

“Er, yes, dry Martini–“ Bond’s voice cut out when Q began tracing absentminded patterns on the sensitive underside of his wrist. 

Perhaps he was the one overplaying it now, Q mused. But whether or not the woman spoke English, and she probably did, being a high-level executive in an international firm, he wanted his body language to be clear: he would very much appreciate it if she would stop making a distraction of herself. 

“Three measures Gordon’s, one of vodka, half measure of Kina Lillet. Shaken not stirred with a slice of lemon peel,” Q finished for him. “I know. You’re adorably fussy about it.”

Bond gave him another one of his bewildered but impressed looks, and Q trailed his fingers lightly back up his agent’s arm before turning towards the bar. He shot one last glance over his shoulder, meeting the sharp, green eyes of the woman for the first time with no emotion in his gaze, and then turned his back on her to go get Bond his drink. 

Once Q had placed his order with the bartender, he murmured, “I hope you remember that you are sharing a hotel room with me and that any plans to bring someone back would be ill-advised on your part.”

_“I have no plans to bring anyone back but you, Quartermaster.”_ Bond’s voice was low in his ear, and Q was glad he was standing on the opposite side of the room so Bond probably couldn’t see him shiver.   

When he returned with Bond’s Martini and a Bellini for himself (sweet tooth), it was to find Bond alone. The woman from earlier was nowhere in sight, and Q wondered if he mightn’t have just made an enemy. She was undoubtedly armed like the rest of her coworkers. He sincerely hoped never to see those cutting green eyes again for the rest of the night.   

Bond accepted the Martini and downed it in one. “Let’s take this party somewhere a little more private, shall we?” he grinned. 

Q sighed wistfully, taking a few quick sips from his own delicious cocktail before setting the nearly full glass down beside Bond’s empty one on the base of the statue. “I believe I saw a cosy spot at the back by the lifts.”

“Perfect,” Bond said, and he took Q’s hand as they crossed the room together, the harbinger of death at their backs. 


	6. Chapter 6

The “cosy spot” Q had referred to earlier was a blindspot in the building’s surveillance at the bend in the corridor leading to the lift bank. He was already pulling out his mobile before they reached it, opening one of his programs and typing a few commands. When they were in position, Q quickly stepped back against the wall and pulled Bond in close before he continued typing, using his agent as a human shield from any prying non-electronic eyes. 

“Do pretend like you’re enjoying this,” Q said as he typed. 

Bond smirked and took a step closer until their bodies were nearly flush, with just enough room for the mobile between them. He braced one hand on the wall next to Q’s head and let the other rest at Q’s hip, where he began tracing lazy circles with his thumb. Payback for earlier, perhaps. At the same time he inclined his head, watching the Quartermaster of MI6 work. 

“ID,” Q said, holding out his hand. If his voice wavered slightly, his agent gave no indication of having noticed. 

Bond handed him his forged Corvus Corp. ID, which Q slid through a card reader plugged in to his mobile. 

“Congratulations,” he said, handing it back. “You’ve just been promoted to C.E.O.”

“Well in that case,” Bond said, accepting the card with a little flourish – he’d always been good with cards, “how about I give you a tour of my office? I’d very much like to see you bent over my desk.”

“Clever,” Q said thinly, beginning the simple hack into the building’s CCTV feeds on his mobile.

They made sure they were not observed getting into the lift, Bond keeping watch for guards and wandering party guests while Q looped security footage at every turn. Bond swiped his ID in the lift’s card reader and pressed the button for the top floor. Neither of them was surprised when the lift began to rise smoothly through the core of the building. 

“Try to suppress your urge to shoot the cameras,” Q reminded, eyeing the lift camera with a slight smile as Bond flicked the safety off his gun. Q was still trying to retrain all of his agents to think of CCTV as an ally rather than an enemy, at least with their Quartermaster on the other side of it. “I’ll be using them as an early warning system.”

“I’ll do my best,” Bond said as the lift doors opened. 

Thankfully, the lift was silent, and did not announce their arrival to the two after-hours guards Q could see patrolling the top floor on the screen of his mobile. Monitoring the corridors ahead and behind, he told Bond when to stop, when to move and where to turn, while the double-oh kept his Quartermaster at his right flank and slightly behind, where he was best able to protect the other man.  

When they stopped just around the corner from the door to the C.E.O.’s office, Q held a hand out and whispered, “When I tell you to move, we’ll have about a twenty-second window for me to bypass the keypad on the office door before one of the guards doubles back down that corridor. That should be plenty of time for me to get in without you having to shoot anyone, but I would appreciate some cover nonetheless.”

“Or I could just take out the two guards, and then you’d have all the time you need,” Bond offered. 

Q let out an exasperated breath. “I know you’re not wearing kevlar under that suit, 007, and I’m not going to risk your life if there’s a way we can do this cleanly.”

“Oh, is _that_ why you were watching me dress?” Bond smirked. 

“I was watching you because you were in the middle of the bloody room! Now kindly shut your smart mouth and wait on my cue,” Q hissed. 

Bond did as he was told, though the corners of his lips remained upturned in a smile. A few seconds later Q gave the order to move, and he quickly and silently took up his station beside the office door while his Quartermaster crouched down in front of it, deftly prying open the panel on the keypad and plugging his mobile into one of the ports before running a code-breaking program. 

Bond tightened his grip on his gun, eyes fixed like a laser sight on the far end of the corridor. Lines of code flashed by, reflected in Q’s glasses, as his program went through thousands of permutations per second. After a few seconds, they could hear the heavily armed guard approaching down the connecting corridor. By Q’s estimate, it would only be another ten seconds or so before he turned the corner. 

“Is this the part where I tell you to put your back into it?” Bond murmured quietly. 

Q used his free hand to answer the question with a rude gesture. Fourteen seconds had gone by since the program began running before there was a quiet, mechanical buzz, and the door unlocked. Q ripped the cable from its port, flipped the keypad’s cover closed and slipped inside the office, Bond right behind him. Seconds later they heard heavy, deliberate bootfalls pass by outside the door without slowing, and fade away down the corridor. 

Only when he could no longer hear the guard’s footsteps did Q allow himself a slow, grounding exhale while he waited for his heart to cease its efforts to escape his ribcage. “See?” he gulped. “I told you shooting wouldn’t be necessary.”

“I’m beginning to feel rather irrelevant to this process,” Bond replied. 

“You can watch the door while I bring Corvus Corp.’s mainframe to its knees,” Q replied with an adrenaline-fuelled grin. He was already approaching the computer at the desk, his fingers itching for a real keyboard again after having to make do with a mobile phone. 

He booted up the computer and plugged said mobile into the USB port on the side of the monitor. With the push of a button, he launched his pre-packaged hacking program that would chew through any security measures and steal whichever files were being kept most hidden, copying them onto the mobile that Q had outfitted with the storage capacity of an average hard drive. He helped the program along manually using the information he had so generously been given by Corvus Corp.’s techies, and he was into the system in no time. The program immediately began scouring the servers for hidden files and turning up thousands, while Q ran a couple searches on his own to see what else he could dig up that his automated program might not. He didn’t spend the time to read any of what he was grabbing, but from the flashes of information across the screen, it was clear that Corvus Corp. was into far more than the average multinational’s share of shady business. 

“I know how much you were looking forward to seeing me in this position,” Q said without looking up from his hacking, “but please keep your eyes off my arse and on the door, 007.” 

He heard an amused chuckle from behind him, but he was too caught up in code to be at all embarrassed at the confirmation of his intuition. 

“What if I just enjoy watching you work?” came Bond’s innocent response. 

Q spared a glance to make sure that Bond was watching the door again, before returning his attention to the C.E.O.’s computer. “Well then that would be a shame,” he said, satisfied that he had found enough evidence of Corvus Corp.’s illicit activities for MI6 to sink the company and all of its subsidiaries with a few well-aimed blows, “because this is where it gets fun.”

He accessed the partitioned storage on his mobile that held his personal collection of particularly nasty viruses, and targeted the most vital points in Corvus Corp.’s network, working outwards from there. “And you get a virus, and you get a virus,” he hummed happily, fingers dancing over the keyboard. “Let’s see…a cooling system failure for the servers—" 

Just then an alarm began screaming throughout the building, jolting Q out of his rhythm. “I suppose that means I’ve done enough damage,” he said, quickly unplugging and pocketing his mobile.  

Bond was inclined to agree. He really _did_ enjoy watching Q in his element, but an impending firefight was distinctly _not_ Q’s element. He raised his gun and moved back to the door, waiting for Q to follow.   

“Ah, let’s short-circuit the lock on the guard room, shall we?” Q said, typing in a few more commands. With a decisive tap of the Enter key, he made to join Bond by the door, but stopped in his tracks halfway across the room. “Shit, I forgot to delete your employee file,” he muttered, turning back to the computer. 

Bond was by his side in the next second. “Leave it,” he said, taking Q’s arm firmly. “We’ve got to go.” 

“Absolutely not,” Q said, jerking out of Bond’s grip (although he suspected the agent merely allowed him to do so). “That file can connect MI6 to this operation, and I can’t remove it remotely.” He was back at the computer and already opening up the directory to run another search before Bond could reply. 

“MI6 can handle it,” Bond said sharply. “The priority now is to get you out. Alive.”

“This file compromises your safety, 007,” Q shot back, not glancing up from the screen. “My priority is you.”

The sound of barking radios and heavy boots pounding down the corridors had joined the sound of the alarm. “ _I_ can handle it,” Bond growled, at Q’s side once more in a few quick strides. “We’ve got to go _now_ or the guards will be on top of us.”  

“ _Wait_ , 007,” Q hissed. 

The command sounded just like the ones the Quartermaster issued over his earpiece from a thousand miles away, and Bond responded to the authority in Q’s voice just as he had been trained to: he followed the order without question, remaining still and silent by his Quartermaster’s side. When Q issued orders like that, it was because he was working with additional information that Bond wasn’t aware of. Bond had to trust that Q still had a handle on the situation, despite every indication to the contrary. In short, Bond had to trust Q. And he did. 

The heavy bootfalls rapidly approached the door to the office, and then passed it by with equal speed, quickly fading away once more into the blaring of the alarm. 

“I masked the I.P. address with one from a computer down in Accounting on the third floor. That’s where the guards are heading,” Q said, hitting a few final keys before turning to Bond with a nervous smile. “We should go now.”

Q was right. They should have left right then, the sooner the better. But instead Bond closed the distance between them and caught his Quartermaster’s mouth in a kiss. It was short of necessity and sloppy because of their combined adrenaline, but when he pulled back, they were both left panting.  

“You’re brilliant,” he murmured quietly. 

“I…I know,” Q said, still rather dumbstruck by the latest development. 

Bond scoffed and held out his hand. “Come on, let’s go.”

Q really couldn’t do more than twine his fingers through Bond’s and let the agent lead him from the room. The room with no cameras and no audience to speak of. The room where their cover was entirely unnecessary. The room where James Bond had just kissed him like the world had collapsed to a single point, and that point was Q. Q smiled as they ran for their lives. 

~ ~ ~

“T-That was hardly necessary,” Q said, still trembling with his fingers locked around the inner handle of the passenger’s side door and the edge of his seat. 

“Just making sure we had a clean getaway,” Bond chuckled, pulling the key from the ignition. 

Q took a few deep breaths. His heart was still racing, which made his voice waver when he said, “I spent a lot of MI6’s money on this car, and your reckless driving could have—“

“I wasn’t driving recklessly,” Bond said. “I was carrying very precious cargo. And there isn’t a scratch on this car.”

Q didn’t know whether to be flattered, or miffed that Bond had just called him “cargo.” Regardless, “Driving up the wall of that pedestrian tunnel was unnecessary.”

“Alright, that part might have been for fun,” Bond acceded with a roguish smile. "But you can't give me a Nitro engine and honestly expect me not to use it."

“Does your idea of fun include anything that isn’t mortally dangerous?”

Bond gave him a heated look. “Of course.”

Q groaned. “I walked into that one. Forget I asked. I’ve got to get back to my laptop and send these files to Q Branch.” 

He got out of the car, and Bond followed, locking it behind them. “And afterwards?” Bond asked curiously, conversationally. 

Q stared at him for a long moment. “I’m making tea.”


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I think there will be just one more chapter after this. Thank you all for the wonderful comments thus far!

Back in the suite, there was no longer any immediate threat of danger (either from enemy fire or from Bond’s driving), and yet Q found it difficult to relax. He had rigged the door and window frames with some nasty explosives should anyone try to force them (which he would of course remove by the time the maids came to turn down the room the next day), but his mind was still restless after the evening’s excitement. If he were more prone to introspection, the reason for his restlessness would be almost immediately apparent, and if he were being honest with himself, he would admit that introspection wasn’t even necessary. The reason was glaringly obvious, slipping out of his dinner jacket and bowtie in the bedroom and in full view of where Q sat working on his laptop in the living room. Q forced his focus back on the screen in front of him and continued to type, accessing MI6’s secure server to begin uploading the files he’d stolen from Corvus Corp. 

While James Bond and danger were synonymous in many people’s vocabularies in and outside of MI6, Q knew that Bond’s brand of danger always had a direction, and that direction never pointed toward him. It was certainly not fear that made Q nervous about sharing a room with 007. Q had never been immune to Bond’s charms. Perhaps such immunity was a thing that Bond’s coworkers built up over time, and Q was just too new to his position within the agency to have developed it yet. Still, that did not mean Q had been about to jeopardise his job – let alone the lives of the agents and civilians that hinged on him doing his job properly – by taking an unprofessional interest in a certain double-oh. What’s more, it was notoriously difficult for anything, or anyone, to hold Bond’s interest for long, and Q had no desire to be carelessly discarded like everything else he lent the agent that was never returned. If Bond could not keep a gun in tact, a person would have to be mad to give him their heart. 

Luckily, Q could create partitions in his mind as easily as he could partition a hard drive, and after his first encounter with 007, he had shoved any and all such unprofessional thoughts about the man behind a particularly strong one; he knew they were there, but he chose not to access them if he could help it. It was easy to do when he believed similar thoughts about him would never so much as cross Bond’s mind. But not an hour ago, Bond had made his interest in Q abundantly clear, and Q was struggling to keep everything he felt towards the man locked away. More troublingly, he was struggling to care. 

Bond laid his jacket out on the bed and left the room with a silence he was no longer conscious of. He had to clear his throat to draw Q’s attention away from his laptop, and when he did, the Quartermaster met his eyes with a look of surprise and something else that Bond couldn’t quite identify, which was a rare occurrence in his experience. 

“If you’re going to be busy for a while, I’ll take the first shower,” he said. 

There was an invitation in nearly every sentence that passed the double-oh’s lips, and that was no exception. Q was rather proud of himself for responding with a noncommittal, “That’s fine. By the timeyou’re done, MI6 will have everything they need.” 

Bond leaned lightly against the arm of the sofa on which Q was sitting and looked over Q’s shoulder to watch the death of a powerful multinational playing out on his laptop screen. “You do realise you’ve done my entire mission for me,” he said. 

Q flashed him a smile with no trace of whatever it was Bond had seen in his gaze earlier. “But you were excellent moral support.”

Bond laughed in earnest, another rarity for him. “Well then, perhaps I ought to be the one offering advice from a thousand miles away while you get shot at.”

“As fun as it would be attending fancy parties every day and driving expensive cars all on MI6’s pound, I rather enjoy offering advice from a thousand miles away with a nice, hot cup of tea while you run around and get shot at,” Q said.  

“I believe that’s called sadism, Q.”

Q only smiled more. “Regardless, what it really comes down to is that, while I may be able to do your job, I don’t believe you would ever be able to do mine.”

Bond gave Q a wounded look. “Weren’t you the one lecturing me about hubris earlier today?”

“It’s not hubris. It’s fact,” Q said. 

“Oh, well I can’t argue with fact,” Bond said, a smile crinkling the corners of his eyes. “As you were, Quartermaster.”

With that, the double-oh sauntered away and disappeared into the WC. When the sound of running water permeated the suite a minute later, Q opened up the files for a side project he’d been working on and attempted to immerse himself in code while pointedly _not_ thinking about Bond in the shower. S urprisingly, he succeeded in getting quite involved in his project, and didn’t notice when the sound of water cut out and the suite was once more silent but for the rapid clicking of his computer keys. Ten minutes later, Bond reappeared beside him, still eerily silent, this time wearing only a pair of grey track pants and holding two steaming mugs of tea. 

It was the cosy smell of bergamot that roused Q from his work, and he looked up at Bond inquiringly.

“Earl Grey with milk and two sugars, steeped for three minutes,” Bond said, handing him one of the mugs. “You’re adorably fussy about it.”

Q gave him an unimpressed look, but accepted the mug nonetheless and held it just to his lips, inhaling the delicious steam. A small sip of the near-scalding liquid revealed that Bond had gotten it perfect. Q was hardly surprised. 

“You looked terribly busy, so I took the liberty,” Bond said, setting his own mug down on the coffee table and sitting back on the sofa beside Q, leaving a respectful distance between them. 

“Thank you,” Q said, taking another sip before setting his mug down beside Bond’s and typing out a few more lines of code. The double-oh seemed to have made a habit of watching Q work over his shoulder, which normally would have driven the Quartermaster mad, but somehow when Bond did it he didn’t mind. Bond was an objective observer, never judgmental unless the situation warranted judgement, but always mildly curious, constantly taking in new information like his lungs took in oxygen. Q supposed that was part of what made him such an excellent spy. Still, the Quartermaster had to offer some token objection. “You know that all of my projects are classified while they’re in development.” 

“Shame,” Bond said, unperturbed. “I was planning on stealing our government’s secrets and selling them to the Chinese.” 

“Somehow I doubt the Chinese will be interested in hacking their own spy satellites,” Q replied. 

“You’re hacking Chinese spy satellites?”

“I’m writing a program to do it for me,” Q said, quickly compiling and de-bugging the new code he’d written. 

“I must admit to hardly understanding a word of it,” Bond said, scrutinising the lines of code on the screen as if, at just the right angle, they would resolve themselves into English, or one of the dozens of other languages he _could_ read.   

“Then why do you find it so interesting?” Q asked, meeting Bond’s keen, wintry blue eyes.  

“I suppose,” Bond ventured, “it’s because you write computer code like you’re writing poetry, but you know that only a few people in the world will be able to understand its full meaning.”

Q dropped his gaze to where his fingers rested on the home keys. “How many people have you killed, 007?”

Bond’s brow furrowed. “I don’t keep count.”

“I do. Would you like to know?” 

“No,” Bond said. “Why are we talking about this?” 

“Because in less than a year on this job, my death count has surpassed yours,” Q said, his tone level, betraying nothing. “What I write are reactor meltdowns, power grid surges, blackouts, surveillance protocols, drone strikes, guidance system failures, weapons targeting protocols. It isn’t poetry. It’s an instrument of destruction.” 

Bond inclined his head ever so slightly. “Like me.”

It was Q’s turn to frown, and he turned to face the double-oh, setting his laptop down on the coffee table. “No, the gun you carry is an instrument. You are a human being.”

Bond gave a crooked smile. “I believe the first time we met you compared me to ‘a grand old warship being ignominiously hauled away to scrap’.”

Q cringed a bit at that. “I was being a twat,” he said. “As were you, but that’s no excuse. It’s my job to deal with tetchy double-ohs who think they’re God’s gift to the United Kingdom.”

“Tetchy?”

Q let out a put-upon sigh. “The point is, no matter what I may tell you, it is ultimately you who decides whether or not to pull the trigger. And that is how it should be.” 

“And every life you take saves a hundred more,” Bond said. “In the end, we’re no so terrible.”

Q smiled, and it was small and fragile, but it was genuine, and it made Bond’s heart flutter. 

“Now drink your precious tea, it’s getting cold,” Bond huffed. 

Q narrowed his eyes skeptically, but nevertheless raised his mug once more to his lips. He hated cold tea. “That sounded an awful lot like an order, 007,” he said, after taking several long, appreciative sips. “I hope you’re not confusing our ranks.”

“Funny thing about MI6 regulations,” Bond said with a mischievous smile, “you outrank me as long as you’re at Headquarters. But you aren’t a certified field agent. Which means that in the field, I outrank you.” 

Q opened his mouth to retaliate, but clicked it shut when he realised Bond was right. He took another, more frustrated sip of tea before responding, “You’ve been following my orders all night.” 

“I’d say I’ve been following your advice,” Bond said smoothly. Then, because Q was beginning to look particularly annoyed, he added, “It was excellent advice. I can’t remember the last time I’ve completed a mission without having to fire a single shot.”

That seemed to improve the Quartermaster’s mood somewhat. “We could halve our budget for ammunition if you followed my orders like you followed my advice.” 

Bond hummed thoughtfully. “I foresee just one problem with that arrangement,” he said. Like the flip of a switch, his voice had gone from light and joking to low and enticing, and Q noticed that the agent had encroached somewhat on the distance he had been maintaining between them. 

“What’s that?” Q asked, holding his breath. 

Bond closed the rest of the distance, running a hand over Q’s where it lay on the sofa cushion and murmuring by Q’s ear, “I rather enjoy keeping you on your toes.”

All Q had to do was turn his head, and then they were kissing, mouths hot and spiced from the tea. Q made a soft sound of approval that Bond felt more than heard, and that he took as permission to let his other hand wander while he entwined his fingers with Q’s on the sofa. Bond ran his hand slowly up Q’s side beneath his jacket, and Q shuddered at the contact before stilling when that hand began tugging loose his tie. He had seen Bond strangle a man with his own tie, but now the double-oh’s motions were tempered, gentle even. Q finally allowed himself to reciprocate fully, tracing the entrancing contours of Bond’s bare chest with his free hand before steadying himself with a grip on Bond’s shoulder when the agent began to push him gently backwards.  

Bond pushed Q’s jacket down his shoulders and Q shrugged out of it before his head hit the armrest, and then Bond began making short work of Q’s shirt buttons. Q’s hands had at some point found their way into to Bond’s hair, still damp from the shower, and when Bond broke the kiss to press another to Q’s clavicle, Q dug his nails into the agent’s scalp. Bond responded with a nip to the juncture of Q’s throat that made him gasp. Bond’s hands settled on the Quartermaster’s narrow hips, smoothing over the hipbones with his thumbs before manoeuvring the younger man into a more comfortable position. He leaned down to recapture Q’s parted lips in another kiss, and the small sounds that Q was soon making were nothing short of delicious.  

He was straddling Q now, and he broke the kiss to murmur against Q’s lips, “M said no harm must come to you — not a scratch.” He dragged a nail lightly down Q’s chest to his navel, not leaving so much as a mark. 

Q shivered regardless, and took in a sharp breath. “James…”

“Mmm,” Bond hummed against Q’s throat.  

“ _007_ ,” Q said, and though it was said on a breathy exhale, it held the same tone it had back in the office of Corvus Corp.’s C.E.O.  

Bond stopped immediately and sat back on his knees, giving the Quartermaster space. “What is it, Q?”

“I…” Q took a moment to catch his breath before continuing. When he did continue, his voice was painfully quiet and devoid of the certainty it had held a moment before. “I’m not sure this is a good idea… It’s just…complicated, and...I mean, it's not that I don't... _want_ to – Christ, I _really_ do, but...”

Q was looking increasingly frustrated with himself, so Bond said, “It’s okay. You don’t have to explain.” He probably almost managed to not look disappointed. Still, he offered a hand to help Q up into a sitting position once more. “I’ll sleep here if you like. You can take the bed.” 

Q straightened his glasses as he considered the offer. “It’s eight-thirty,” he said. 

“If you don’t want to sleep yet, there are other ways to pass the time.” 

“You have something in mind?” Q asked. 

Bond shrugged, and Q’s attention was immediately drawn to the easy, powerful shift of muscle. “There’s always Scrabble.” 

Q’s eyes narrowed in suspicion. “Is that code for something?” 

“It’s code for I brought Scrabble.” 

Q continued to stare at Bond for another few moments before saying with a slight smile, “You’re a puzzle, James.”

Bond returned the smile with the usual spark of mischief back in his eyes. “I thought you liked puzzles, Q.”

Q chuckled. “Alright. You set up the board on the bed while I take a quick shower.”

“Do you usually play Scrabble in bed?” Bond asked.  

“Not usually, but we’ve got a king, so we may as well use it for something,” Q replied, refusing to blush. “You could also make some more tea if you want to go above and beyond the call of duty.” 

~ ~ ~

When Q emerged from the bathroom wearing his favourite pair of stripey flannel pyjamas and toweling his hair dry, it was to find Bond sitting cross-legged on the bed with a Scrabble board laid out in front of him and two steaming mugs of tea on the nightstand. Q was certain he’d had a dream like this once. 

Bond had, mercifully, put on a sleep shirt while Q was in the shower, but Q smiled at the thought that the agent had just forfeited the only handicap he was going to get. Free from distractions, Q was nigh unbeatable at Scrabble.  

He picked up one of the mugs and settled across the board from Bond, taking a sip before saying, “I hope you aren’t expecting me to go easy on you just because we were snogging on the sofa a minute ago.”

Bond feigned offense. “I wouldn’t dream of it.”  He divvied up the tiles, and Q insisted that he take the first move, so he put down ‘BED’ in the centre of the board. 

Q smiled, turned the word into ‘BEDRAGGLED’, and drew an all new hand.

Bond frowned. “Lucky draw,” he muttered. 

“I thought you didn’t believe in luck,” Q said. 

Bond put down ‘MISSILE’ over a Double Word Score and his lips quirked. “No, perhaps not.” 

Q played ‘ISLAND’ over a Double Letter Score, and they soon fell into a rhythm, both running strategies in their heads while chatting easily in a way that would give the impression to an outside observer that what was taking place was nothing more than a game in which each man’s pride was not heavily invested. 

"Did you go out and buy Scrabble for this mission just because of my mug at work?" Q asked. The box had still been wrapped in plastic when Bond had removed it from his bag.

"I do think the joke is rather ador–" at Q's glare, Bond cleared his throat "-clever," he corrected. "But I may have done a little digging on my own."

"Moneypenny?" Q guessed, eyebrows raised. 

"Moneypenny," Bond confirmed. "It  _is_ one of your favourite games, isn't it?"

"Yes," Q admitted. "Outside of literal game theory. Oh, and the Elder Scrolls series, of course."

"I think I'd've had a hard time getting an Xbox console and two controllers into my carry-on," Bond said.

"You've actually heard of The Elder Scrolls?" Q asked, surprised. 

"I have to keep abreast of a lot of different fields of knowledge as a double-oh agent."

Q squinted at Bond suspiciously. Bond had to be well-versed in a lot of different areas for his job, but he doubted video games were one such area. "Do you _play_ video games?"

Bond looked ever so slightly uncomfortable. "I've found they're sometimes a good way to decompress after a mission."

Q grinned excitedly. "And I'm betting you find all that first person shooter nonsense as dull and frustratingly inaccurate as I do. You play adventure games, don't you? Like Skyrim?"

Bond was definitely uncomfortable now. "The dragons are cool," he admitted. "And I like swords. I've always thought it was a shame they weren't more practical in the field."

Q thought about that as he laid down his next word, a smile still plastered on his face. "I bet I could make a practical sword," he pondered aloud. "Maybe something similar to a bayonet – it would have a chamber and trigger in the hilt to fire rounds for engagement at a distance, but in close combat it would simply be an excellent sword, and still a useful weapon when you ran out of ammunition. No one will expect a sword these days. I could disguise it in an umbrella, or a cane if I made it thin enough. A titanium blade should still be plenty strong..." 

Bond's eyes practically lit up. It made him look much younger, less hunted by his past. 

"I bet you'd look quite dashing wielding a sword," Q said, a little dreamily. Then he realized that he had actually said the words aloud, to Bond, and groaned quietly. "Shoot, sorry. I was doing so well."

Bond just looked amused, however. "It's alright," he said earnestly. "You've made your position clear. I'm not going to pin you to the mattress just because you paid me a compliment."

"Oh. Good." Q sighed, and was surprised to hear that it sounded more disappointed than relieved. He cleared his throat. “Have you ever watched the Jason Bourne films?” he asked as he completed ‘TACTIC’. “They’re quite good. They’re practically about you, if you were American and a rogue agent. Well, _more_ of a rogue agent. If I'm still restless after I win this game, I might try and find one of them on satellite.”  

Bond only raised an eyebrow at Q's confidence. He couldn't safely label it overconfidence until the game was over. “I have, actually,” he said, making ‘COMPLEX’ by adding three tiles to the board. “But I find them rather tiring. Another day at the office, really.” 

Q scoffed. “You’ve never spent a day in an office,” he said, extending Bond’s word to ‘COMPLEXION’ and silently daring the double-oh to make a smart comment about it.  

Bond put down ‘SECRET', and wisely refrained from commenting. “You’ve got me there. By the way, Quartermaster, I’ve been having a problem with my laptop...” he said instead, because he knew it would irk Q to no end. It worked beautifully. 

Q glared at Bond over the rims of his glasses. “One, Q Branch is not the MI6 I.T. Department. Two, you are perfectly capable of using Google. And three, I am hardly surprised that your poor laptop is giving you trouble. What did you do to it this time, drop it out of a plane?” As if to make his point, Q put down ‘DESTROY’.  

“Nothing quite so dramatic,” Bond said. “I’m sure it’s just the usual wear and tear. The screen’s flickering, that’s all.” He put down ‘INSTRUMENT’.  

Before he could stop himself, Q asked exactly how it was flickering. Soon he was listening to Bond describe the problem in detail, after which he suggested that Bond try resetting the PRAM. When it was clear that Bond had no idea what Q had just said, Q went into an explanation of how to go about doing that. By the time he had finished, they were down to the last tiles. 

Bond had, quite surprisingly, managed to hold his own so far against the Quartermaster, but Q had started planning his last move four turns ago. He laid down his remaining tiles to spell ‘QUETZALCOATL’ over a Triple Word Score, and then met Bond’s stricken expression with a Cheshire Cat grin. Bond flipped the board and demanded a rematch. 

Q won the second game as well, but less spectacularly, and Bond took it with more grace. 

“Well, Q,” Bond said, staring down at the tangle of words that Psych would probably have a field day with, “I can take a beating, but even I have limits. I think a tactical retreat is in order, possibly with some wound-licking involved.”

“You can stay…if you like,” Q said softly. 

Bond gave his Quartermaster an inquiring look, but settled back down across from the other man. “What do you mean by stay?” he asked, his tone neutral.  

“I mean,” Q said, pushing the game board out of the way and leaning forward to press his lips lightly to Bond’s before continuing, “I’ve made up my mind. As long as we can maintain our professional relationship, then M can sod off about the bloody scratches.” 

Bond smiled against Q’s lips and kissed him again while still maintaining a degree of caution. “How did you come to a decision?” 

"I remembered that I'm not an idiot." 

"I should think that would be fairly obvious," Bond replied, pressing hot, wet kisses down the column of Q's throat. 

“Yes, but I would be an idiot to pass you up,” Q said. “Despite your insubordination, and your terrifying driving, and the fact that you almost never return my equipment in tact, and the fact that you’re apparently a terrible loser at Scrabble.” 

Bond chuckled, and the vibrations tickled Q’s skin. “I could almost get the impression you didn’t like me at all.” 

“On the contrary,” Q exhaled, tilting his head back to give Bond better access, “I must like you quite a lot to overlook the considerable list of things about you that make me want to shoot you. Hmm… Speaking of, I do have one condition.” 

“Oh?” Bond said, lips brushing Q’s once more. “What’s that?”

“Give me your gun.”

Bond stared at the Quartermaster for a moment, but his expression was inscrutable, so Bond moved to fish his Walther out of the drawer in the nightstand, and handed it over. Q checked that it was loaded, and then placed the weapon on top of the nightstand on his side of the bed. 

“Protection?” Bond teased. 

Q laid back against the headboard and pulled the agent down with him. “I believe,” he said, working on the buttons of Bond’s shirt, “that you said I could shoot you if I felt at any time that you weren’t treating me with the respect due the man to whom you owe your life dozens of times over.” 

Bond blinked. “You sneaky bastard. Are you even afraid of flying?” 

“Oh yes, petrified. But my medication isn’t _that_ strong. I may not be a field agent, but I still work in espionage, and I never pass up an opportunity to gather good intelligence.”

Bond had never been quite so turned on by being played before, and he found himself at a bit of a loss. “You do remember that the Walther is coded to my palm print?”

“Yours and mine, James,” Q said, and Bond really liked the sound of his name on his Quartermaster’s lips. “Or did you forget that I’m the one who tests all of your weapons?”

“That sounds rather dirty,” Bond hummed, grazing his teeth down the shell of Q’s ear while divesting the man of his pyjama top. 

Q’s breath hitched, but he still managed to roll his eyes. “You’re supposed to be the mature one here. Which reminds me, you have done this before, haven’t you? Because if I have more experience than you in this area I am going to laugh.”

“Why does everyone assume I’ve never done this before?” Bond said irritably, biting down on Q’s earlobe. 

“C-could be your affinity for leggy brunettes in revealing silk gowns,” Q stuttered, suddenly finding it difficult to form sentences. 

“Hush,” Bond murmured before making sure Q's smart mouth was otherwise occupied. Bond ran his hands down Q’s feverish ribs to settle at his hips where his fingers toyed with the waistband of Q’s pyjamas. “I know how much you enjoy bossing me around," he said, "so just tell me if there’s anything you want me to do, or not do. Or if you want me to stop,” he added. 

“Don’t you dare stop,” Q said, going for authoritative but ending up at more of a whine. 

Bond chuckled. “Yes, Quartermaster.”


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And that's a wrap! Thank you for reading and commenting! It's been fun :)

Q was warm and content and a little bit sore and overall had absolutely no desire to wake up. Nevertheless, someone was carding their fingers through his hair in a way that was quite pleasant, but also somewhat insistent, indicating that if the nice method of waking him failed, the next might involve removing some of the covers, or pushing him off the mattress. He grumbled and curled closer against his companion, hoping to elicit sympathy. There was a soft chuckle, and then strong arms wrapped around him and pulled him closer, and Q was happy to bask in the warmth. 

“We’ve got a plane to catch, you know,” a voice warm as brandy murmured into his hair. 

“Didn’t you say something about private jets?” Q mumbled, still refusing to open his eyes. 

Another chuckle. “I wouldn’t have thought you’d approve of such a flagrant abuse of MI6 resources.”

Finally, Q looked up to meet Bond’s eyes. He held the agent’s gaze, despite the flush rising in his cheeks. “I can’t quite believe I’m waking up in bed next to James bloody Bond,” he sighed. 

Bond looked taken aback. “Usually those words are said with a little more pride. It isn’t a crime… Unless you’re even younger than you look.”

“I’m thirty-one!” Q said, elbowing Bond in the ribs only half-playfully. “And are you sure about the flight time? Because you are getting on in years." 

Bond rolled his eyes. “Oh, hush. But if you’re worried,” he said, taking on a more serious tone, “that I was just trying to get you into bed for a night, I promise you that wasn’t my intention. The reason I’ve built up such a reputation for casting people aside is that it is very difficult for me to care about people, given…well, you’ve read my file. But I meant it when I told you that I cared about you. And I would very much like for last night not to be our last night. Mornings, afternoons and evenings would be wonderful, too.”

Bond always projected confidence in everything he did, but for once something in his expression wavered, uncertain. The double-oh was on unfamiliar ground, Q realised with a small, sympathetic smile. He leaned up and kissed the man, revelling in the fact that he could simply do so, outside of the walled-off corners of his mind, and without the pretense of some ridiculous cover.  

“What makes you think I would even let you get away with casting me aside?” Q smirked. “Did you forget that I have ways of making your life very unpleasant?”

Bond grinned brilliantly. “Remind me never to forget your birthday.” 

“Reminding you rather defeats the purpose of you remembering it.” 

“Smart-arse.”

“‘Smart’ is never an insult,” Q said, reaching over to grab his glasses and laptop from the nightstand. He quickly read over the updates he’d been sent on his interns’ progress with the Corvus Corp. files (they no doubt hated him for the sheer volume of data he’d dumped into their laps for them to sort through, but these kinds of menial tasks were what he paid them for), and then checked their flight status. The plane would arrive on time, the wretched thing. 

“I foresee myself becoming jealous of that machine,” Bond said, watching Q. “Especially if you’ve made a habit of bringing it into bed with you.”

“Contrary to the office rumour mill, 007, I am not, in fact, romantically involved with my laptop. That said, if you plan on monopolising my bed, you are going to have to fight my cats for it,” Q said. When he closed his laptop, it was to find Bond lying back and smiling to himself. “It makes me nervous when you smile like that. What are you thinking about?” 

“Just that this is all a bit surreal,” Bond answered. “And that Scrabble is perhaps the strangest form of foreplay I’ve ever engaged in.”

“Well, I don't know about you, but what I find most attractive about a man is the size of his vocabulary.” Q wrinkled his nose immediately in distaste. “That line was almost as bad as one of yours.”

Bond gave a cheeky grin. “Maybe I’m starting to rub off on you.”

Q shuddered at the thought. 

~ ~ ~

They left the hotel half an hour later. Some of that time was spent packing, and the rest of it picking Scrabble tiles out of the sheets. The plane trip home was made slightly more pleasant for Q by the fact that he could curl up against Bond’s side and the agent would wrap his arms around Q protectively and rub soothing circles into his back. Amidst being both terrified and drugged half out of his mind, Q appreciated the easy, careless shows of affection, because he knew that once the two of them arrived back at MI6, they would have to stop. 

Q spent the entire cab ride back to Headquarters fretting about what to tell M during their debriefing – or rather, what _not_ to tell him and how to convincingly lie about it if asked. Bond gave him pointers on his poker face, tipping him off to about a dozen tells he hadn’t even been aware that he’d had, which in the end only made him more nervous. Bond, on the other hand, wasn’t concerned. M had overlooked Bond’s habit of charming his colleagues into bed thus far because Bond never failed to get results despite his dalliances on the side, and while Q being a Branch head (and significantly more than a "dalliance") upped the ante a bit, M would be a fool to bring the wrath of HR down on MI6’s most effective double-oh and the most brilliant Quartermaster they had ever had over something like this. 

Moneypenny met them on their way into the building. She did so mostly out of habit, because if she couldn’t manage to waylay Bond the moment he arrived, he tended to disappear and miss his debriefings with M. All of the double-ohs had their quirks, and she was quickly learning how to manage them, although 007 was admittedly the trickiest. She and Q had had numerous conversations lamenting the fact that keeping the double-ohs in line was a lot like herding very dangerous cats. Lions, really. And 007 was the head of the pride. 

“Welcome home, gentlemen,” she said with a warm smile, then turned and began leading them to M’s office. 

Q, who was still feeling some of the effects of his medication, said rather enigmatically, “Solid ground.”

Moneypenny shot him a concerned look.

“I think what the Quartermaster means is that he’s just glad to be off the plane,” Bond supplied. 

Moneypenny’s next look was levelled on Bond, and it was significantly less kind. “I’m well aware that you’re the one who dragged him out into the field.” 

Q raised a hand tentatively. “Right here,” he said. 

“Sorry, Quartermaster,” Moneypenny said. “Although if I were you, I would expect Bond to make the experience up to me somehow.”

“Like you did after you shot me off a train?” 

“Getting shot is practically in your job description. It’s not in his.” 

“I see. Anyway, Quartermaster, haven’t I already made it up to you?” Bond asked casually.

Q refused to allow any heat to rise to his cheeks. “You’ve made a decent start.” 

Bond gave him an inquiring look behind Moneypenny’s back. Q only smiled. Moneypenny was knocking on the door to M’s office a minute later, and then ushering them inside. 

M sat behind his mahogany desk wearing his usual expression of keen professional disinterest. He motioned for Q and Bond to each take one of the chairs across from him. 

“Q Branch has been sending me the highlights of your data extraction,” he said, once they were settled. “So I take it the mission went well.”

“Yes, sir,” Q answered. “No complications.”

M raised an eyebrow. “None?” This time he looked pointedly to Bond. 

“No property damage, no bodies to dispose of, no political scandal, no lost or damaged equipment,” Bond confirmed. 

“Then with the addition of the Quartermaster, you’re returning everything you borrowed from Q Branch in once piece,” M noted, not without a hint of surprise. Bond wondered if he and Q had been talking.  

“It’s a Christmas miracle, sir,” Q said. 

M’s expression was something between a smile and a grimace when he said, “Indeed. To what may we attribute your good behaviour, 007?”

Bond was getting slightly annoyed at the patronising talk passing between the two department heads. “Q eliminated the need for bad behaviour. More or less.” 

“We worked surprisingly well together, sir,” Q said quickly. “But I would request, if I may, that this not become a regular occurrence. I am much more useful here in my Branch, and a lot of work backs up in my absence. And not to put too fine a point on it, sir, but I really hate planes.”

“Noted, Quartermaster,” M said. “And I agree. While this was an interesting experiment, in the future I will require that the double-ohs stick to the menu, so to speak. Unless your presence is absolutely necessary on-site.” He looked to Bond again. “Anything more to report, 007?”

“Nothing more.”

“Then you are dismissed. The Quartermaster and I must discuss matters that are above your clearance. Proceed to Q Branch to return your equipment." 

“Sir,” Bond said with a nod. He exited the office.

Q watched the door close behind him before turning back to M. “I must have missed the memo, sir. What are we discussing?”

“Oh, I just said that bollocks to get Bond out of the room. You and I both know that his clearance, like yours, is lamentably a mere formality. You both have the frightening capability of acquiring just about whatever information you set your minds to acquiring. But trust me, neither of us wants Bond here for this discussion.” 

Q swallowed hard. “Er, I’m still not clear on exactly what discussion—“

“You play dumb very unconvincingly, Quartermaster. I don’t recommend trying it again,” M said, his tone and expression still unreadable. 

Q stilled in his chair, waiting.  

“If I’d had even the slightest suspicion that Bond had taken an interest in you, I would not have sent you out with him. Although Lord knows there’s plenty 007 can get up to on domestic soil as well. At any rate, I apologise for putting you in that position.”

“How…?” Q finally managed. He was certain neither he nor Bond had said anything to give them away. 

“I had Agent 71 stay behind to provide support should you call for it. Contrary to popular belief, 007 is not a one-man army. He occasionally needs back-up, and I was not about to take chances with my Quartermaster. I set 71 up in the empty suite next to yours.”

Q cringed. He and Bond had thought they’d had the whole floor to themselves, and they had made no effort to be neighbourly. 

“But that’s all in the past. In the future, I expect this indiscretion not to affect your working relationship. If you continue to see each other in a non-professional context, which I cannot condone, I do not want to find out about it. You’re both spies, you know how to be discreet. There is only so much I can overlook. Am I clear?” 

Q blinked a couple times and willed his heart rate to slow. He felt like an insect pinned under glass. “Yes, sir, very clear. But…if you don’t mind me asking…why would you allow this to continue? Between me and Bond? Even to me it seemed like a terrible idea.”

“The official answer is that I wouldn’t allow it to continue. But if I don’t know about it, I can’t stop you.” 

“And the unofficial answer?” Q’s curiosity was going to kill him one of these days. 

The barest hint of compassion slipped into M’s expression briefly, and Q expected he had only seen it because M had allowed him to. Still, Q was reminded of the old M, if only for a moment. “For whatever reason, you seem to understand 007, which is more than can be said for most of us here. He responds to you, and before you complain that he doesn’t follow orders, you should know that he follows twice as many of your orders as he does mine. You might be a stabilising influence on him. Of course, 007 tends to be a terrible influence on everyone else, but I trust the strength of your character. If you keep him on track and don’t let him lead you astray, you might be able to save him from greater hazards of his job than bullet wounds.” 

“…Understood, sir.” 

M gave a curt nod. “I trust you’ll relay the message to 007. There’s a chance he may actually heed it if it comes from you. You are dismissed, Quartermaster.”

“Thank you, sir.” Q suppressed the urge to bolt, instead setting a deliberate pace as he walked out of M’s office. However, upon seeing Agent 71 seated in one of the chairs in the antechamber, no doubt waiting for Q and 007's debriefing to be over so he could present his own report, Q felt his face heat and he sped up his pace considerably.

Unfortunately, Agent 71 was incredibly polite, and apparently felt compelled to greet his superiors as etiquette dictated, even if said superiors would really prefer that he didn't. "Er, afternoon, Quartermaster," he forced out with an uncomfortable smile.

Q took some solace in the knowledge that this whole situation was awkward for all involved. He didn't stop, but he gave a curt nod, equally forced. "Agent," he said, and it came out icier than he intended. None of this was 71's fault after all. He just had the misfortune of being in the wrong place at the wrong time. 

Thankfully, Q's tone effectively put an end to the exchange that Moneypenny was watching with interest from behind her desk. Q refused to meet her eyes, and 71 fell silent as Q swept out of the room. He wouldn't be surprised if he received a late-night phone call of his own that night. He kept up a clipped stride down the hall, exuding the message that he was not to be talked to for anything less than a major international crisis, and headed over to Q Branch, turning M’s words over and over in his head.  

When he reached the Q Branch control room, it was to find a gaggle of his underlings crowded around his workstation in the centre of the room, chatting animatedly in hushed voices. It took a few seconds before one of them noticed that Q had entered the room. She immediately hissed something to the others at which they all fell silent and glanced nervously in Q’s direction before backing away and shuffling back to their own stations, although none of them resumed work.  

Q eyed his underlings suspiciously before approaching his workstation with a degree of caution. He wondered whether one of the bunch had been stupid enough to try on their Quartermaster the popular office prank of rigging one’s keyboard to explode with confetti. What he found was possibly worse. The word ‘DINNER?’ was laid out in Scrabble tiles in front of his keyboard, the question mark drawn on the back of the seventh tile with a biro. He could feel all of his underlings’ eyes on his back, and he jumped when a voice spoke from behind him. 

“Secret admirer, Quartermaster?”

Bond had appeared out of nowhere, and Q whipped around to glare at the man. “I believe the point of a secret admirer is that it’s kept a secret.” 

“Sounds fun,” Bond mused. 

Q turned to pocket the wooden tiles and tapped his fingers absentmindedly against his keyboard. Bond picked up on it immediately, keeping track in his head as Q tapped out, ‘9pm. Somewhere expensive. You owe me.’ He came down on the period rather hard, and the key actually depressed. Both he and Bond started when his keyboard exploded in a burst of confetti.

Bond's hand had flown to his holster on instinct, and he slowly released his grip on his gun as he watched the colourful strips of paper drift down to the floor in the absolute silence of Q Branch, before meeting Q's shellshocked gaze. "That wasn't me," he said, bewildered. 

Q snapped out of his surprise and turned a venomous glare on his underlings, who actually cowered behind their workstations, a few of them whispering harshly to one another, no doubt reassessing the hilarity of the little prank when applied to their boss. "Oh, I know it wasn't," he told Bond as he opened one of his desk drawers and took out a spare keyboard, unplugging the busted one and plugging in the new one with swift, efficient motions. "I'll deal with the culprits later." No one in Q Branch could engineer elaborate pranks better than the Quartermaster himself. He had stayed out of most of the office shenanigans in the name of professionalism, but if they wanted to drag him into battle, he would wage war. 

“M and I had an interesting conversation in your absence,” Q said, keeping his tone neutral as he returned his gaze to the agent before him, who was obviously struggling not to snicker. 

“I expected you might,” Bond said, just as casually. “You’ll have to tell me about it later. I have a reservation to make.” He flashed Q a smile before strolling away down the hall, around the corner and out of sight.

Q turned his attention back to his underlings, and caught a couple of their gazes dart down behind their screens. He cleared his throat to command their attention once more. Slowly, a dozen pairs of eyes rose to meet his. 

“There are funny office pranks, and not funny office pranks,” he said. He gestured to his busted keyboard, now in the bin beneath his workstation. “The one with the exploding keyboards and confetti? That’s funny. Less funny when it's my keyboard, but still within the terms of engagement.” Next he held up the Scrabble tiles in his hand for all to see. “This is a not funny office prank. And if I find out who did it, we’ll be having a talk in my office about the future of your career here. Understood?”

There was a wave of emphatic nods. 

“Good,” Q said with a friendly smile. “Back to work, then. Oh, and someone clean up the mess.” 

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! If you enjoyed my writing, you can commission a story from me here: http://urban-sorcerer.tumblr.com/commissions


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